FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - The annual Frankfurt Book Fair opened Wednesday with a Korean theme as the global publishing industry basks in the success of the latest Harry Potter novel and looks at new ways to sell more books in different formats. So far, 2005 has been the sort of year for booksellers that organisers of the 57th Frankfurt Book Fair are eager to see.

Demand for books of all titles and subjects has increased this year, said Andrew Wilkins, president of Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine. "More than 1.2 million books are being published every year," he said. "That's a lot of books, a lot of authors, a lot of ideas and ... a lot of trees."

Fair spokesman Holger Ehling said more than 30 South Korean authors and others were invited to attend this year's fair, which ends today. In previous years, the Middle East was highlighted, while in 2003 it was Russia.

Besides readings from authors, the fair includes films, photo exhibits and seminars from Korea that focus on its past, present and future.

Fair director Juergen Boos said that several attempts were made to have North Koreans participate in the event, with fair officials travelling to Pyongyang twice last year, but the communist country declined.

By focusing on North and South Korea past and present, attendees of the event are getting a first-hand look at Korean culture, including theatre and dance performances, symposia and a traditional Korean garden, Boos said.

With more than 7,220 exhibitors from 101 countries, fair organisers hope to increase access to Korean literature through exchanges between the nearly 30 authors who are attending the four-day gathering and publishers from around the world.

The fair encourages reading, publishing and expanding new markets for books, be they nonfiction, comic book tales or the Arabic translation of Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code.

The organisers of the fair, which has been held annually since 1949, said the publishing industry has turned the corner in the face of competition from online and digital media, and is melding with them to make books more widespread than ever.

Dieter Schormann, president of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, said interest in the new Harry Potter novel, the use of free books by newspaper publishers to lure customers and the growing size of audiobooks, podcasts and downloadable texts prove that a demand for reading is growing.

"As an international business platform, as the biggest cultural event in the world and a political forum, the Frankfurt Book Fair highlights once again the importance of the medium and the market," he said.
Part of that impact is why the fair chose to highlight the literature and culture of the Korean peninsula as its primary focus.

Writers like Canadian Margaret Atwood and Britons Nick Hornby and Ken Follet were scheduled to attend the fair, as was perennial Nobel literature prize candidate Cees Nooteboom of the Netherlands.
Others expected to attend include Albert Uderzo, the creator of Asterix, the legendary French comic series about a pair of Gauls' adventures in the Roman Empire. The latest edition of the series, Asterix, went on sale two weeks ago in Germany.

In a nod to filmmaking, Germany's Wim Wenders was scheduled to be on hand to screen his latest film, Don't Come Knocking.
Turkish-born novelist Orhan Pamuk, who was charged with insulting his country's national character and could face prison, was scheduled to receive the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade yesterday for his works.

Pamuk is scheduled to go on trial on December 16 and could face up to three years in prison for comments on killings of Armenians and Kurds. The United States and the European Union have called on Turkey to drop charges against Pamuk to ensure freedom of expression.

Boos said politics was no reason to shy away from controversy.
"For 70 years now, the Frankfurt Book Fair has considered itself a platform for political discourse and has been intensively used as such," he said. "The Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is also part of this aspect. The judicial attacks on this year's prize laureate Orhan Pamuk in Turkey are a dramatic example of the political significance of the book."

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