#fbm22: Mohsin Hamid will be keynote speaker at the fair’s Opening Press Conference
Frankfurt, 16 August 2022 – Mohsin Hamid will be one of the keynote speakers at the Opening Press Conference of Frankfurter Buchmesse (Tuesday, 18 October 2022, 11.00 a.m. in the Frankfurt Pavilion on the exhibition grounds). In his book “The Last White Man“, published by DuMont in Germany today, he sketches a scenario in which the white population of an unnamed town changes the colour of their skin: Protagonist Anders is the first to find out one morning that his skin colour is now dark. He is not the only one. In this scenario, a community is confronted with its fears and prejudices in a surreal way. “At its heart, this is a novel about seeing, being seen, loss and letting go,” wrote Guy Gunaratne about Moshin’s latest novel in The Guardian.
“We invite authors and publishing professionals to the Opening Press Conference of Frankfurter Buchmesse who address pressing social issues. In recent years, Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk and Francis Gurry, then Director General of WIPO – World Intellectual Property Organization (2019), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2018) and Salman Rushdie (2015) have set out their very personal view of current issues here. They provided food for thought and broadened our perspective," said Juergen Boos, Director of Frankfurter Buchmesse.
“In his latest book, Mohsin Hamid once again proves to be a great, time-diagnostic narrator who looks at today’s sore spots and illuminates them until new insights are possible. I am delighted that, with Mohsin Hamid, we will have one of the most interesting voices in contemporary literature as our guest,” Boos said.
Mohsin Hamid is the author of the international bestsellers “Exit West“ and “The Reluctant Fundamentalist“, both finalists for the Man Booker Prize. His first novel “Moth Smoke“ won the Betty Trask Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award. His essays, a number of them collected as “Discontent and Its Civilizations“, have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Review of Books and elsewhere. He divides his time between Lahore, New York and London.
Contact for the media
Press & Corporate Communication, Frankfurter Buchmesse, press@buchmesse.de
Kathrin Grün, Head of Communications, Phone: +49 (0) 69 2102-170(opens in a new window), gruen@buchmesse.de
About Frankfurter Buchmesse
Frankfurter Buchmesse is the international publishing industry’s biggest trade fair and the most important international marketplace for content – from novels and children’s books to academic databases and stories for films, games and virtual reality experiences. Publishing professionals from around the world meet here with partners from the technology sector and from related creative and cultural industries, sparking new partnerships and business models. Since 1976, the book fair has featured an annual Guest of Honour country, which showcases its book market, literature and culture to attendees in a variety of ways. Frankfurter Buchmesse organises the participation of German publishers at international book fairs and hosts trade events throughout the year in major international markets. Frankfurter Buchmesse is a subsidiary of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers & Booksellers Association). https://www.buchmesse.de/en(opens in a new window)