Kolkata Book Fair spotlights Germany's literary diversity

Describing the International Kolkata Book Fair requires many superlatives. It is one of the largest book fairs in Asia and the most well-visited in the world, with a record 2.9 million literature fans attending it last year.

This year's fair, which takes place from January 28 to February 9, hopes to welcome even more visitors, who will attend the event to buy books, meet authors or attend outdoor book readings. Unlike its international equivalent in Germany, the Frankfurt Book Fair, which always has three days restricted to trade visitors, the Kolkata fair is a giant, public open-air bookstore with over 1,000 stands. 

The 2025 Kolkata fair's focal theme country is Germany, a first for the country in the Indian fair's 48-year history.

More than a dozen authors and book industry professionals have been invited to present German literature in all its diversity.

One of the guest authors is David Wagner, whose most recent novel, "Verkin," tells the life story of a Turkish woman with Armenian heritage. Another is Christian Kracht, whose upcoming novel, "Air," is about a journey through Europe that tests the hero's inner limits.

German-language guests with ties to India

Many of the invited authors have ties to India. Kracht served as a correspondent in New Delhi, India's capital, for many years.

Austrian Tonio Schachinger, who won the 2023 German Book Prize, was born in New Delhi.

And Christopher Kloeble lives between New Delhi and Berlin. His most recent novel, "The Museum of the World," describes a historic Indian expedition.

The Berlin-based poet and author Ulrike Almut Sandig has also visited India for extended periods of time on numerous occasions. In the 1990s, she studied Indian Studies and learned Hindi.

Shortly before her departure for Kolkata, she told DW that she has maintained a deep love for Indian culture and literature to this day. She is particularly looking forward to meeting and talking with her Indian colleagues.

Sandig's interest in India began during her childhood in East Germany (GDR). Her father was a pastor, and he and her mother idolized Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of the Indian independence movement who used nonviolent resistance in his fight for freedom from British rule.

Sandig describes herself as quite the idealist when she decided to study Indian Studies at university. Since then, she has visited India many times, attended literary festivals all over the country and worked with Indian musicians and poets, including in performance.

Germany, in all its literary diversity

In Kolkata, Ulrike Almut Sandig plans to meet with Naveen Kishore, the head of Seagull Books, which published two of her books in English translation. Seagull has published a series of German-language books in English, especially works by contemporary authors.

Such books still have it tough in India: German-language works in bookshops tend to be classics by authors Bertolt Brecht, Franz Kafka or Thomas Mann — if any can be found on the shelves at all.

But perhaps this could be starting to change.

Philipp Ackermann, the German ambassador to India, stressed that the opportunity is a chance to show "a very modern, reflective, diverse and colorful side of literary Germany."

Astrid Wege, head of the Goethe-Institut in Kolkata, which put together the program for Germany's appearance as the book fair's focal country, promised "unique insight into German literature, culture and contemporary topics."

"I am proud that DW is a partner of the Kolkata Book Fair," said Peter Limbourg, Deutsche Welle's director general, who will run a stand at the fair. "This year, the German pavilion highlights diversity and sustainability as its core topics, and they are core topics for DW, too."

This article was originally written in German.