Bookeish! turns into Bookeina!

(eish - an exclamation of surprise or amazement; eina - an exclamation of pain, like Ow)

The South African International Festival of Books (known as Bookeish!), originally planned for April 2004, has been postponed due to fund-raising shortfalls.

In a statement on the www.bookeish.co.za website the festival’s chairman Stephen Johnson says: "We set ourselves an ambitious goal of raising R5 million (US$660,000) to cover the cost of the festival and a number of complementary cultural events.

"As at 30 June we were somewhat short of the interim fund-raising target we had set for ourselves. The board was reluctant to compromise the success of the venture and agreed to a postponement. The Publishers' Association of South Africa will announce the new strategy in due course."

The Bookeish!office in Cape Town has closed and no new date for the festival has been set.

The festival was part of a campaign to highlight "the exhilaration and the celebration of the life transforming power of books", according to the Bookeish! website.

A central aspect of the programme in the build-up to the festival in 2004 was an educational programme based on Africa’s 100 Best Books.

The festival was planned as an event for readers and authors, not an event aimed at publishers and booksellers.

The grand plan for the event aimed to turn Cape Town into ‘book city’ over the period. There would have been music and poetry in Kirstenbosch Gardens (an extension of the current summer music programme); jazz and reading in the Waterfront with the North Sea jazz festival; and the orientation of Baxter, Artscape and Spier programmes to include book themes and works. Local parades were planned around local libraries and library events, in which children dress up as book characters, coming together into a single Book March. A high-profile media, poster and banner campaign was hoped to add to the excitement and sense of ubiquitous book events.

The Bookeish! website says the festival is "Much more than a trade gathering of publishers and booksellers nationally and internationally, Bookeish! will be the culmination of a two-year campaign that highlights the importance of books and the value of ‘reading for life’. Bookeish! will encourage South Africans to see that reading and the purchase of books is an enriching and worthwhile investment in their own and the country’s future."

It was planned that the festival would take place every two years.

Johnson said: "We have received significant support in both cash and kind from organisations like Atlantic Philanthropies, Cambridge University Press, PanMacmillan SA, The Penguin Group, Random House, Juta & Co, Struik New Holland, Johnnic as well as significant commitments of support from the Department of Arts & Culture, Avmin, Naspers, the National Arts Council and Daimler Fleet Services.

"We are confident that the energy and enthusiasm displayed by all who have been associated with Bookeish! has already contributed significantly towards our goal of highlighting the value of books and the value of reading. Our involvement in Africa's Top 100 Books competition and numerous other cultural events has been extremely rewarding. But, for the moment, the Festival itself will have to wait. "

The postponement is just a "temporary set back", he said.