New Twist for Campaign to Take Chinese Literature Global?

By Bruce Humes, published

In Books in the Turkish Stand in Frankfurt Book Fair, Turkish columnist Doğan Hızlan reports on Finland's neat marketing ploy at the just-finished 2014 Frankfurt Int'l Book Fair:

I also learned that in Finland there are 2.2 million saunas. They have carried this widespread sauna culture to the book fair. Reading sessions are being held in public saunas in Frankfurt. A Finnish author could bust into any sauna . . .

. . . he or she chooses and read to the people inside for five to 10 minutes. Whether . or not the writer does this naked is up to them.

What's more, a fire truck transformed into a sauna goes around several districts of the city. In the truck, young poets recite their poems and then go into the sauna with their readers to continue their poetry conversation. It sounds quiet interesting.

Perhaps China's marketeers can learn from this. For future int'l book fairs in Frankfurt, London, New York or wherever, how about arranging something similar -- e.g., have translators bu[r]st into local karaoke joints and read out contemporary texts translated from the Chinese?

Comments

# 1.   

I'm just imagining impromptu (and probably unwelcome) moral hectoring sessions by roaming Neo-Confucian scholars...

Eric Abrahamsen, October 13, 2014, 9:11a.m.

# 2.   

La nouvelle qui remet tout en cause : 《人民到底需不需要桑拿》? (朱文)

brigitte duzan, October 16, 2014, 10:56p.m.

# 3.   

The link to Ms. Duzan's item above:

《人民到底需不需要桑拿》

Bruce, October 18, 2014, 2:14a.m.

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