Can Books Serve as Cultural Ambassadors to Change the Reputation of a Nation?

In Discussion by Edward Nawotka

Cultural exports are often described in geopolitical terms as an exercise in “soft power” and book fairs, in particular, provide a forum for developing lasting relationships that are the foundation for change.

By Edward Nawotka

international

International book fairs — from Beijing to Buenos Aires (taking place now) to author-centric events like the PEN World Voices Festival — aim in part to help bolster the reputation of their host countries, cities and regions. LéaLA, a new Spanish-language book fair in Los Angeles aims to do this for Mexican culture. Sometimes, as with Frankfurt, the names even become synonymous with the events. But to what extent can books serving as cultural ambassadors change international perceptions of a place?

Cultural exports are often described in geopolitical terms as an exercise in “soft power.” Books, in particular, carry intellectual weight in this arena, as ideas — if not always books — can traverse borders easily. Book fairs serve as a forum for such ideas and provide face-to-face interaction that can often change minds and create lasting relationships that are the foundations of change.

Let us know what you think in the comments.

About the Author

Edward Nawotka

A widely published critic and essayist, Edward Nawotka serves as a speaker, educator and consultant for institutions and businesses involved in the global publishing and content industries. He was also editor-in-chief of Publishing Perspectives since the launch of the publication in 2009 until January 2016.
http://publishingperspectives.com/2011/04/books-cultural-ambassadors/
publishingperspectives.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2016-18
54582
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:FDIWR4EI2WBLR76C52S5GSN6YHPLAIFK
<urn:uuid:fb995aac-f072-444d-90ed-93473a3e9139>
2016-05-03T04:56:30Z
109.199.98.131
sha1:26L6SK2HVBRO6NWPCBM2QFVPG7IGP6VZ
<urn:uuid:b3643221-d364-402e-a8ce-d85022e87cf8>
http://publishingperspectives.com/2011/04/books-cultural-ambassadors/
length
response
<urn:uuid:44c6b3aa-2ba2-482e-9e3b-af3ac6692db4>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-239-7-51.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2016-18
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for April 2016
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf