Jaipur, Jan 22 (IANS): The Who's Who of the publishing business, including top editors and CEOs of leading publishing houses, bookstores and book fairs from India and abroad will participate from Wednesday in Jaipur BookMark, the South Asian publishing conclave that runs parallel to Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF).

The first day will open with the keynote address by Juergen Boos, the CEO of the Frankfurt Book Fair, who will be introduced by Margit Walso, head of the Norwegian Literature Abroad.

The day's line up on Wednesday will include a session on "Other Forms of Storytelling", with some stellar names like Paul McVeigh, Jan Carson, Daniel Hahn amongst others from the industry, followed by a crucial session, "LGBTQ Writes", which will explore a specialised genre in publishing and the challenges faced in bringing out gendered narrative in India.

Another relevant session "Convergences: Languages, Markets and Readers" will discuss the synergies shared by the languages in India. The day will culminate with "Poems on the Road", an initiative by Walking Bookfairs of a 10,000 km long, tour of India, ferrying poetry books, across major cities and states to celebrate the importance of reading, writing and sharing poetry. This will be accompanied with poetry readings by Ulrike Sandig, Sohini Basak and Akhil Katyal.

The second day will see some crucial sessions focusing on the business aspect of publishing, content consumption and translations. Publishing maestros Vera Michalski, Urvashi Butalia and Naveen Kishore will deconstruct the world that publishers inhabit in a free-flowing conversation with Manasi Subramaniam.

This will be followed by "A Hundred Bookstores are not Enough", which will look into the realities of real estate and brick and mortar bookstores versus online retail. A discussion on skilling employees will delve into the questions of how much are publishing companies investing in skilling their employees and the ways in which they groom and retain talent.

A roundtable on translation will engage with perennial questions of whether translations can capture the depth of literature and culture and examine the role translators play in discovering stories from around the world. The panel will include Arunava Sinha, Kalpana Raina and Daniel Hahn, amongst others, with a keynote by Ros Schwartz, translator of Antoine Saint-Exupry's "The Little Prince".

The Jaipur BookMark has established itself as the ultimate hub for national and international stakeholders of the book industry over the last six years. Aimed at fostering relationships among the stakeholders, it will witness the coming together of publishers, translators, literary agents, booksellers and writers.

The festival has had the steady support of the Norwegian Literature Abroad (NORLA) and the Norwegian Embassy for the last six years. In 2019, the Norwegian Embassy is the Country partner of Jaipur BookMark. The Australian Arts Council has been sending a delegation of publishers and festival directors to Jaipur for the last five years, and this year, it will also see a 10-member delegation from France taking Jaipur BookMark by storm.

Three major industry awards, including the Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize, will also be announced at Jaipur BookMark, whose motto is "Books mean Business".