The 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair

The 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair opens on Wednesday, and Korea is the "Guest of Honor." This year's event will be the largest ever, with approximately 12,000 printing houses from 110 nations will be participating and some 300,000 visitors and 10,000 news crew members. We inevitably have special expectations for this year's book fair, because the nation chosen as "Guest of Honor" is given a special opportunity to show off its cultural past, present, and future. It is a "cultural oympics," in the spirit of the Olympics and the World Cup.

During the course of the fair Korea will hold special events large and small in 29 areas, not just in publishing and literature but including also music, drama, and art. The traditional Jongmyo Jerye'ak and the modern musical "Subway Line #1" will go on stage simultaneously, and Korea's Jikji Simgyeong, the world's earliest book published with metal type, will be displayed next to the German Gutenberg Bible. It is welcome news to learn that the "100 Korean Books – Ubiquitous Books" program, which demonstrates Korea's excellence in information and communication technology, is already attracting a lot of interest.


This year's fair will be a fine opportunity for the Republic of Korea to rise as a culturally advanced nation in the international community. When Japan was the Guest of Honor in 1990, it worked hard at planting Japanese culture around the world. It is probably not entirely a coincidence that four years later Kenzaburo Oe won the Nobel prize for literature.


They say that about 4,000 local news reports are filed about Guest of Honor events alone. We call on officials to work hard at making the fair, in the words of fair president Juergen Boos, "a chance to let Europe and the whole world know of the identity and excellence of Korean culture." We hope to see the hard work and many complications over the past two years of preparations move the hearts of the world's people.


The Hankyoreh, 19 October 2005.