The Book Festival
on Washington Mall
By Syed Amir, PhD
Bethesda, MD
Even for Washington where protest
rallies for and against myriad causes are common,
September 24, 2005, was a special day. Passionate
anti-Iraq war protesters, their numbers variably
estimated from one hundred to three hundred thousand,
had congregated at the National Mall, close to
the White House, representing the largest anti-war
demonstration since the start of the war. While
news of the protest marches dominated the media
on that day, there was another highly noteworthy
event taking place nearby, which received only
modest coverage, the fifth National Book Festival.
The festival, first launched in 2001 on a modest
scale by the Library of Congress and hosted by
the First Lady Laura Bush, has grown steadily
in size since, attracting a wide spectrum of authors
and literature enthusiasts. There has been growing
concern in this country that book readership is
declining in the face of stiff competition from
TV and other entertainment sources. Mrs. Bush
was a school librarian in her earlier career and
is reputed to be enthusiastic about reviving literacy
and book reading, especially among the youth.
This year’s celebration, which coincided
accidentally with a day of anti-war protests,
was the largest and the most successful event
so far. Fortunately, there was enough room on
the National Mall for both the protest demonstrators
as well as those who came to celebrate this annual
literary event.
The mild and dry weather in Washington on the
day of the festival encouraged many to take advantage
of this once-a-year opportunity to meet and listen
to their favorite authors, pose question to them
in person and get books autographed by them. An
estimated ninety thousand fans visited the various
pavilions and exhibits at the festival, while
seventy-five award-winning authors, poets as well
as prose writers, came to give talks, expound
on and discuss their literary contributions and
sign books. The festival was characterized by
the sponsors as the “celebration of the
joy of reading.”
The occasion was not geared entirely to please
adults. Children’s story book writers, live
embodiments of characters drawn from story books
as well as popular basket ball players all came
to amuse and entertain the young readers. The
national retail store Target, one of the primary
sponsors of the festival, had earlier announced
a nation-wide competition, Letters about Literature.
Its aim was to motivate students in classes 4
through 12 to write a letter to one of their favorite
authors, past or present, describing how their
writings had influenced and changed their thoughts
or their vision of the world. The six winners
were awarded all-expense-paid trips to the book
festival, besides $500 in gift certificates to
buy any articles of their choice from the Target
stores.
The festival was elegantly laid out, comprising
six separate pavilions, each designed to cater
to the variegated tastes of the readers. Authors
writing for children and teenagers, and those
catering to adults and dealing with subjects such
as Mysteries and Thrillers, History and Biography,
and Home and Family had been assigned separate
pavilions to talk about their books. Somewhat
unusual and welcome was the recognition accorded
to poets, who have often complained in the past
about the lack of it. Among many authors attending,
the most popular were the writers of biographies
and history. Included among these was the celebrated
historian and biographer, David McCullough, who
has twice won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize.
His most recent book, 1776, related to the American
war of independence, is already on the bestseller
list. His last book entitled John Adams (the second
US president), was on the New Time’s best
seller list for more than a year. Before the day’s
end, McCullough had autographed over 700 copies
of his book purchased by his fans. In this country,
unlike developing countries such as Pakistan,
authors of popular books earn millions of dollars
and acquire both fame and fortune. They often
become national icons.
Among authors receiving much attention was the
famous TV journalist, Andrea Mitchell, who is
married to Alan Greenspan, the powerful chairman
of US Federal Reserve Board responsible for setting
and directing the fiscal policies of this country.
Her book, Talking Back, is based on her personal
experiences as the first women to cover for a
TV network the periods of five US presidents,
the Congress and foreign policy issues. Another
popular author was the New York Times’ foreign
affairs columnist, Thomas Friedman, who has written
extensively about the Middle East, especially
the Arab-Israeli conflict. His latest book, The
World is Flat, A brief history of the 21st century,
already a best seller, relates to the globalization
of the world’s economies and its impact
on people and places. His previous book, From
Jerusalem to Beirut, was highly acclaimed by the
critics and also achieved bestseller status.
In the present day political climate, it was inevitable
that the festival would generate some controversy.
The long shadow of the Iraqi war negatively influenced
the decision of some authors to participate. A
well-recognized poet, Sharon Olds, and a novelist,
Michael Chabon, declined the invitations from
Mrs. Bush on the grounds of their opposition to
the war and her identification with the present
administration.
The sponsor of the event, the Library of Congress,
had its own pavilion to showcase the work it has
been doing to advance the cause of research and
scholarship. More than 200 years old, it takes
pride in having the largest collection of books
in the world, in excess of 130 millions literary
items housed in 530 miles of bookshelves. To this
huge collection, the library adds 10,000 items
every single day. It has acquired over the years
priceless books and manuscripts, including a large
stack of foreign books, among them hundreds of
Urdu books. It maintains offices in foreign countries
-- India, Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia and many
others -- to acquire local publications. Consequently,
only half of its acquisitions are in English,
the rest are distributed across 460 languages.
The collection is not limited to books alone;
it has journals, newspapers, historic photographs,
and priceless, unpublished hand-written manuscripts
as well. It stores a vast collection of newspapers
from around the world, including the oldest copy
of a newspaper dating back to December 1659.
As the day drew to a close and the war protesters
finally started to board their buses for their
journey back home to various parts of this country,
the daylong book festival also came to an end.
Both sets of participants had apparently gained
something they highly valued. The protesters had
successfully expressed their strong opposition
to the involvement of this country in a distant
war with no clear objectives and no end in sight.
The book lovers, on the other hand, had discovered
or rediscovered the pure joy of reading the written
word, a habit many of them will retain and cherish
for the rest of their lives.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
