Yes, I too enjoyed/experienced/endured BookExpo America.
With highlights like this year's Best Translated Book Award announcement it was certainly worth the visit.
Also hard to ... miss: the vast Chinese presence (they were the 'Global Market Forum' star attraction) -- taking up lots of floor-space at the Javits Center, though rather/very limited in what was on offer, literarily speaking (the few big-name authors seemed o get lost (or hidden) in the shuffle -- though Xi Jinping was ... spotlighted (see, for example)).
I enjoyed a few panels: one on Publicizing International Literature featuring Soho Press associate publisher Juliet Grames and translator Allison Markin Powell -- whose translation of Nakamura Fuminori's The Gun was one of the few ARCs I was very pleased to pick up (pre-order your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk) -- and a Q & A with Norman Manea (Norman Manea !).
I managed to limit myself to a handful (armful) of ARCs -- highlights including Simon Critchley's Memory Theater (coming out in a US edition from Other Press), Estonian fiction from Grove Press (Andrus Kivirähk's The Man Who Spoke Snakish; see their publicity page), and William Boyd's forthcoming Sweet Caress. And two books from the always forlorn-if-fancy Saudi stand (one blurbed by (Al-)Tayeb Saleh (but published by the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education ...)).
BEA is always a good place to bump into many of the local (and more far-flung) publishing professionals; still, I have to admit that I'm kind of glad I have an excuse (it's in Chicago, not my backyard ...) not to attend next year.
Also hard to ... miss: the vast Chinese presence (they were the 'Global Market Forum' star attraction) -- taking up lots of floor-space at the Javits Center, though rather/very limited in what was on offer, literarily speaking (the few big-name authors seemed o get lost (or hidden) in the shuffle -- though Xi Jinping was ... spotlighted (see, for example)).
I enjoyed a few panels: one on Publicizing International Literature featuring Soho Press associate publisher Juliet Grames and translator Allison Markin Powell -- whose translation of Nakamura Fuminori's The Gun was one of the few ARCs I was very pleased to pick up (pre-order your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk) -- and a Q & A with Norman Manea (Norman Manea !).
I managed to limit myself to a handful (armful) of ARCs -- highlights including Simon Critchley's Memory Theater (coming out in a US edition from Other Press), Estonian fiction from Grove Press (Andrus Kivirähk's The Man Who Spoke Snakish; see their publicity page), and William Boyd's forthcoming Sweet Caress. And two books from the always forlorn-if-fancy Saudi stand (one blurbed by (Al-)Tayeb Saleh (but published by the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education ...)).
BEA is always a good place to bump into many of the local (and more far-flung) publishing professionals; still, I have to admit that I'm kind of glad I have an excuse (it's in Chicago, not my backyard ...) not to attend next year.