Magdalena Vodopija: The Book Fair(y) Created Its Own Freedom, Rather Than Buying It

Prepared by: Bojana Ćustić Juraga

31, 30, 29, 28… 1—or, for that matter, 1, 2, 3… 30, 31…: I have been working at the Fair from the very first edition to this, the 31st one. With the possible exception of two, they are all inseparable to me, forming one grand, unbroken Fair, where days of “pride and glory” intertwine with days of despair and misery, moments of childlike rapture with periods of utter collapse and helplessness; days overflowing with a creativity whose source remains a mystery, followed immediately by days when you cannot even move an ashtray, let alone come up with an idea. When I think of that great Fair of mine, built from so many fairs, the faces of great authors emerge, as do the faces of my colleagues, sellers, the audience, and publishers. I am certain of this: while they may not have met at any one specific fair, they do meet within this Fair of mine, which is not tied to a single year but all 31 of them. When I look back, I hear countless languages, that Babylonian sound in which the tongues of our authors intertwine, mixed with the laughter of the audience and the raised voices of exhausted organizers. I see events before me, as if on a movie screen, that are so incredible that, at times, it seems to me as though I had imagined them. I caught myself connecting certain events because they make a good dramaturgy when put together, even though they took place ten years apart. To me, The Fair is defined by long, wordless, Bergmanesque shots, while simultaneously including a Sorrentinian chaotic celebration of life found in the film La grande bellezza.

2020 and 2021 – the years of resistance or agony: Both, with agony being dominant. Although I repress the memory of that time, it sometimes comes out like the worst kind of horror. Disorientation, helplessness, feeling blocked, meaninglessness - I have been through all of this, just like the others, sometimes with less intensity, sometimes with more. The resistance consisted of not giving in to the recommendations to “do something virtual”. That undefined “something”, which was also “virtual”, seemed absurd to us, so we decided to organize a real, live book fair and festival with all the necessary epidemiological measures. The first attempt took place in December 2020 and it failed. Six days before the opening, when everything was already ready, we were prohibited from holding the event. I don’t know how we got over that, but in the following year 2021 we held two fairs; one in the summer and one in the winter. Although it was realistically beyond our ability, we managed to pull it through. The resistance resulted in what matters most to us - we did not disappoint our audience.

Money is programme freedom: I wouldn’t have minded starting the Fair the way Peter Florence, the founder of the famous Hay-on-Wye festival, did: with the winnings from a big poker game, plus a little help from his co-founders, his parents who belong to the British Old Money Society. In a tiny Welsh town, he created one of the largest and most imaginative book centers in the world. Programme freedom never depends only on money. The same goes for Hay-on-Wye because Florence, in addition to an unquestionable financial background, had great passion and wide knowledge about books, as well as a lot of imagination and dedication; he knew how to put together a brilliant team and together with them create entirely original program formats. After all, he managed to create Hay Festivals all over the world; from Peru, through Italy, to Spain. The freedom that Florence took for himself in creating the program could not have been bought, even with far more money. We won our space of programme freedom despite the lack of money or, and this is also possible, precisely because of the lack of money. Perhaps the Fair as it is might not even existed if budgets had been more generous. We will never know whether, even back then, there would have been such crazy leaps, acrobatic manoeuvres performed without a safety net, Copernican turn in ideas, and other such shenanigans that were later recognized globally as the “Pula model”. At this time when freedoms of creative expression are falling one after another, and “social norms” are piling up, it will be difficult to maintain the space of programming freedom both with and without money.

Personal, global, and other people’s disquiets: I was born with a sense of disquiet within me, and it has never gone away. It is this unrest that drives me to do what I do. As for the Fair, it is a collection of the creative disquiet of those who create it. I could write a thick book about the disquiet of authors who come to visit us at the Fair. As for the world we live in, well, we are living in extremely turbulent times, and this general disquiet has a great impact on us. 

The mother of writers afflicted by tuberculosis or the housewife of Croatian literature: I cannot identify with this label of “mother”, and now they’ve even started calling me a “grandmother”. I am a mother only to my own daughter. I can identify with this “housewife” label even less, and my close friends know why. I cannot deny that the hospitality and a warm welcome of the Fair are one of the reasons for our success; a good festival cannot exist without that, without the atmosphere of a fiesta, a celebration we are skilled at  creating. It is true that the authors and their presentations represent the center of our world, even though some are frail, some are giants, some quiet and discreet, some impulsive, some with a wild sense of humor, some melancholic, and some one of a kind, some people of the world… Over the years, I’ve come to love all of them just the way they are, and I think they feel that, too. 

The Fair are women: We are largely a female team, but there are also quite a few male colleagues among us. I never choose my coworkers based on their gender, and certainly not according to the humiliating “women’s quota”. The same applies to the authors at the Fair; we select them based on what they have written. When I have the opportunity and the right to choose, which I do at the Fair, I choose people who know, who are capable, and who want to keep learning. Their gender, origin, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation… does not interest me at all. I have always wanted to work with creative, kind, open, and warm people; people that have no hidden agendas. And I succeeded in that. The fact that most of us are women was not a priority for me, and it only speaks to the fact that of all those who applied to work at the Fair, my woman colleagues were by far the most talented and capable ones. 

The holy audience: If authors are the center of our world, then holiness within that world belongs to our audience. I have always worked for the audience. Of course, I like to hear my colleagues’ opinions about the Fair, as well as their suggestions, criticisms, and praise. I have learned, and continue to learn, from my younger colleagues. However, what matters most to me is our loyal, but also critical and sophisticated audience. I always get nervous in front of the audience; I’m always a little shaky, wondering how they’ll receive the program we’ve prepared for them, but when someone raises a finger, that’s my reward, my Oscar. 

Albert Goldstein: A great intellectual of the old school, which has almost vanished, a great editor, and my never forgotten mentor. For both me and the team at the Fair at the time, Berto arrived at a crucial moment; he encouraged us to work on the book festival in our own way and encouraged us to do what we did best - breaking down taboos and creating new ways of presenting books. He initiated us into the secrets of the craft and protected us with his authority. A cynic and deeply emotional soul, an expert and a curious boy, outgoing open-minded, a nonconformist with that ‘68 style, and yet a man with old-fashioned manners. He taught me the secrets of publishing, the secrets of creating books, but also guided me toward acquiring a strategic way of thinking. He encouraged my unrestrainedness and intuition: “These are your great strengths”, he would tell me, “use them, but in a calm way, without that fire of yours”. For me, Albert Goldstein was and still is the measure for a gentleman and for wisdom, a teacher like no other. 

The First day of the Fair: On the first day, we are all in a state of increased sensitivity, yet at the same time incredibly focused. We are floating a bit. When the words “The Fair is open” are uttered, I always experience both relief and a certain catharsis, because that is the moment when everything we have been working on for a year begins to unfold. For me, the first day is always dreamlike, and it’s only toward evening that I begin to wake up and come back down to earth. No amount of experience helps here, because with my excitement comes the excitement of the crew, the audience, and the authors, which again include me. Because of that first day of the Fair, I can certainly say that only one day a year I have my head in the clouds.

The Last Sunday of the Fair: It’s hard because we’re all exhausted and that Sunday is sad because the Fair is inevitably leaving. Some years, we can’t even stand the sight of each other and wander around the Fair on our own, but usually it’s quite the opposite: there’s no way we can separate. We’re not exactly on the ground that Sunday, either slightly hovering above the ground or sinking into it, depending on the person, as tired but satisfied warriors.