Nearly 200 mainland publishers attended this year's Frankfurt Book Fair, but only one threw a party - privately owned Shanghai 99 Readers. And unlike state publishers, who were intent on selling Chinese books abroad, in line with government policy, Shanghai 99's deputy editor Peng Lun was frank about his firm's goals.
'We're here for one thing only - to buy foreign rights,' Peng said.
Call it a tale of two fairs. The event, which ended on October 18, not only revealed tensions between the official contingent, with its 26 state-approved writers, and the dozens of dissidents and exiles who converged on the fair to have their say; it showed that even the Chinese publishing world was divided.
Emerging private publishers were setting the agenda in Frankfurt as well as back home, following their de facto legalisation by the General Administration of Press and Publications in April after nearly two decades of operating in a grey area.
In order to convince the mainland, where publishing and speech freedom are tightly controlled, to take part, book fair organisers promised the guest of honour could set its own programme without being disturbed by dissidents and critics. Everyone hoped for 'dialogue', yet the atmosphere soured from the start, after officials barred critical voices such as novelists Yan Lianke, Liao Yiwu and Tsering Woeser from attending.
China's presence this year followed years of negotiation. Yet members of the official delegation seemed unable or unwilling to engage with their critics.