THE TELEGRAPH

Peripheral pitch for delegates
Jan 30, 2008. [ more ]

The Publishers and Booksellers Guild on Tuesday struggled to put together a roster of programmes involving foreign delegates who are in the city for Book Fair 2008. The US consulate and British Council worked out a parallel schedule of programmes featuring their delegates.

The guild officials met representatives of US-Kolkata Literary Exchange (USKLE), which has organised the visits by 15 US delegates, and offered to hold events that would enable them to "connect" with the city. "It is difficult to present an alternative to interaction with book-lovers at the Book Fair venue. We have tried our best to chalk out a schedule," said Tridib Chatterjee, the guild secretary.

Paul Theroux, who was to inaugurate the fair on Tuesday afternoon, instead inaugurated a "peripheral book fair" -- a series of events at various city addresses -- at American Center. "It's a shame, though I am not sure whose shame it is. A lot of people sharing an urge to connect with books have missed out on an opportunity to meet and mingle and that is surely a big disappointment. There is still a lot of intellectual activity and I don't think there should be any reason to despair," said the writer.

"The delegates have waived their lecture fees just to meet book-lovers from this part of the world. We want to reach out to as many as people as we can. We will also take the team to Santiniketan," said Goutam Dutta, the executive director of USKLE. British Council, too, has lined up programmes at hotels, clubs and universities for its Scottish guests. The six ambassadors from Latin America, here to attend the Book Fair launch, spent the day exploring the city. After a stop at Coffee House, they went to Jorasanko Thakurbari, where students of Rabindra Bharati treated them to dance, vocal and sarod recitals. "It was an emotional experience," said Juan Alfredo Saavedra, the Columbian ambassador.

READ an article in the Guardian about the Book Fair

DELEGATES:

GOUTAM DATA is a poet and playwright. He has published four volumes of poetry and a book of plays. He is co-editor of Ami amar miritur por sadhinota chai na [I Do Not Want My Freedom When I Am Dead ]., the first African-American poetry anthology to be published in Bengali in 2005.

RAM DEVINENI is the publisher of Rattapallax and a filmmaker whose films have been shown at the Cairo International Film Festival, San Jose Film Festival, Palm Springs Film Festival & Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema.

CATHERINE FLETCHER is a poet, an editor for Rattapallax magazine and the online World Poetry Map, and the coordinator of the Endangered Language Initiative, a multi-year project of the New York-based People's Poetry Gathering and City Lore.

CAROLYN FORCHE the author of The Angel of History (1994), which received the Los Angeles Times Book Award; and other books. Over the years Forche's quest to understand the individual's struggle with social upheaval and political turmoil has taken her from El Salvador to the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, and South Africa. Her trip is being funded by the NEA.

JOY HARJO's books of poetry include The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, which received the Oklahoma Book Arts Award; In Mad Love and War, which received an American Book Award and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award, and others. She also performs her poetry and plays saxophone with her band, Poetic Justice. Her many honors include The American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award, the Josephine Miles Poetry Award, the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, the William Carlos Williams Award, and fellowships from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Witter Bynner Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Hawaii. Her trip is being funded by the NEA.

NATHALIE HANDAL's is the author of numerous award-winning books, including The Lives of Rain and The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology (Academy of American Poets Bestseller and Winner of the Pen Oakland/Josephine Miles Award). She is currently finishing Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond (forthcoming, Norton).

BOB HOLMAN produced for PBS, The United States of Poetry, aired nationally in 1996, featuring over sixty poets including Derek Walcott, Joseph Brodsky, Rita Dove, Allen Ginsberg, Czeslaw Milosz, Lou Reed and former President Jimmy Carter. He co-edited Aloud! Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the winner of the American Book Award. He won three Emmys over six seasons producing Poetry Spots for WNYC-TV, and received a Bessie Performance Award.

SUJI KWOCK KIM's first book of poems, Notes from the Divided Country (Louisiana State University Press, 2003) was chosen for the 2002 Walt Whitman Award. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as The Nation/ "Discovery" Award.

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL directs the International Writing Program at The University of Iowa and has written numerous books of poetry and books of nonfiction including The Grass of Another Country: A Journey Through the World of Soccer and The Old Bridge: The Third Balkan War and the Age of the Refugee.

DANTE MICHEAUX is an emerging poet who resides in New York City and is the winner of the 2006 Oscar Wilde Award for his poem entitled "Bread Boy." In addition, in 2008 his poem will appear in the anthology Poetic Voices Without Borders 2, which will include the top poems entered in the contest.

BHARATI MUKHERJEE was born in Kolkata and is a National Book Critic award winner and Indian-born American writer. She is currently a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. Her novels include Jasmine, Desirable Daughters, and The Tree Bride. She received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and her Ph.D. from the department of Comparative Literature.

IDRA NOVEY's chapbook of poems The Next Country won the 2005 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship and her translations of Brazilian poet Paulo Henriques Britto received a PEN Translation Fund grant; the book, The Clean Shirt of It, came out in 2007 in the Lannan Translation Series from BOA Editions. Her first book, The Next Country, received the Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books and will be released in 2008.

ED PAVLIC is Associate Professor of English and director of the UGA Creative Writing Program. He is also author of the book of poems, Paraph of Bone & Other Kinds of Blue (The American Poetry Review/Copper Canyon Press, 2001), He was the winner of the American Poetry Review/ Honickman First Book Award and the Darwin Turner Award given by African American Review.

Rattapallax is an independent book publisher and magazine based in New York City. The press has organized literary events for the United Nations and lead delegations of poets and writers to Ghana to focus on the AIDS crisis, and to Chile for the Centenary of Pablo Neruda.

Council for Literary Magazines and Presses serves one of the most active segments of American arts and culture: the independent publishers of exceptional fiction, poetry and prose. CLMP has a long history of organizing literary book fairs around the USA.

Consulate General of the United States, Kolkata, India.

The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government, the Endowment is the nation's largest annual funder of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states, including rural areas, inner cities, and military bases. Funding for the appearance of several delegates has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Wyeth is a global leader in pharmaceuticals, consumer health care products, and animal health care products. With research and development (R&D) programs focused on small molecules, vaccines and biotechnology, Wyeth is exploring more than 60 new therapies for medical conditions such as diabetes, breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV, Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. Wyeth Pharmaceuticals has generously donated the cost of shipping USKLE books and materials to the Kolkata Book Fair.

The Cultural Association of Bengal, a secular, non-profit organization registered in New York, was created to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of Bengal and her culture.

Room to Read partners with local communities throughout the developing world to establish schools, libraries, and other educational infrastructure. We seek to intervene early in the lives of children in the belief that education is a lifelong gift that empowers people to ultimately improve socioeconomic conditions for their families, communities, countries, and future generations. Through the opportunities that only an education can provide, we strive to break the cycle of poverty, one child at a time.