It’s not so much the volume of deals done in the agents’ enclosure, the number of exhibitors or the size of the conference hall it takes place in. It’s not even — though this can be a key indicator — that the local sex workers take the week off. Nope: you know your book fair is the real thing once the Scientologists come.
At the Frankfurt Book Fair their stand is enormous. So wandering round the cavernous halls of the Sharjah International Book Fair, to come upon a display devoted to the works of L. Ron Hubbard was like greeting an old friend. There was no Dianetics, more’s the pity (local religious sensitivities), but here were lurid ziggurats of L. Ron’s pulp stuff — all ghouls and bosoms and titles like The Carnival of Death and Dead Men Kill.
Two lanes across from L. Ron’s prentice-work is a stand selling exquisitely bound Arabic copies of the Koran. Nearby, another stand is well stocked with copies of Fifty Shades of Grey (blasphemy excepted, the book fair is making a big show of being censorship-free). A hundred feet from that is another showcasing rare books going back several hundred years — a leaf from a 9th century Kufic manuscript; a 17th century first edition of the first grammar of Persian — with oil-baron price tags.
And at the end of the row is the cookery demonstration area, where Felicia Campbell — a young blond American cookery writer who, unexpectedly, specialises in Omani -cuisine — has just suffered an exploding pan incident, and emerged somewhat shaken and lightly dusted with flour.
It’s an unusual mix, into which for what we might call ‘Lols’ are stirred the imperturbable, beret-wearing Man Booker laureate Ben Okri, and the travel writer, broadcaster and one-time hostage John McCarthy; both guests of the festival.
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