This chapter focuses on the joint guests of honour at the 2016 Frankfurt
Book Fair, Flanders and the Netherlands – a rare case of two government
organisations representing separate national groupings (Flanders and
the Netherlands) coming together to present the literature of a single
language (Dutch) on the international stage. It recounts how the two
delegations’ shared status as guests of honour for 2016 came about through
a collaboration between the Dutch Foundation for Literature and the
Flemish Literature Fund (now known as Flanders Literature) and analyses
the branding decisions made by the 2016 organizers. Conceptually, the
chapter engages with perspectives from field theory and the sociology
of translation to elaborate branding as a form of position-taking and
guest of honour presentations as important mechanisms of transnational
capital conversion.
Visit JOSHA at the Frankfurt Book Fair