Press release

Claudia Kaiser is the new face at the Cape Town Book Fair as its Director, but she is no stranger to the world of book fairs.

Kaiser joined the Frankfurt Book Fair in mid 2003 as Head of the International Department, and moved on to become the Vice President of the company. The Cape Town Book Fair is jointly owned by the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Publishers Association of South Africa (PASA).

From 2007 to 2009 she was the General Manager of KITAB, a joint venture company of the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage which organises the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.

Kaiser handed over the reins at KITAB to Monika Krauss this year, after turning KITAB into a successful venture which has contributed to advancing the growth of the book and publishing sector in the United Arab Emirates and promoting reading in the region. KITAB has also been significantly involved in developing a book distribution system in the Arab world. Kaiser said on leaving KITAB, "I hand over the leadership with both a smile and a tear in my eye - what else. I am a little sad, because it has been an exciting time for me in Abu Dhabi. KITAB has a marvellous team, and in a short space of time, we have made the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair very well known and brought it up to an entirely new level. It has also been great fun to tackle the other new KITAB projects, such as reading promotion."

Apart from being the Director of the Cape Town Book Fair which Kaiser is passionate about and for which she has a number of innovative plans, she is also the Vice President and Head of Business Development at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Kaiser initially was born in Germany and began her working life as a bookseller. She went on to earn an MA Degree in Chinese Studies at the University of Hamburg and studied in China. One of her specialities is Chinese literature and translation and she worked as an Editor and Translator at the China International Publishing Group in Beijing, China. In 1998 she established the German Book Information Centre in Beijing for the Frankfurt Book Fair and was its Director for five years.

In 2002 Kaiser moved to the United Nations and was the External Publications Officer at the UN in New York until 2003.

Kaiser has a passion for developing the book trade and for growing the publishing industry. She is excited about her role as Director of the Cape Town Book Fair. There are so many opportunities in publishing in Africa for international publishers, and for African publishers to get much better connected to the international trade. The Cape Town Book Fair is a wonderful opportunity and market place to really get this going, and for the publishing industry in South Africa and all of Africa to show and establish itself internationally. Also, I find it thrilling that so many visitors are attracted to the Cape Town Book Fair and its wonderful events which have been grown by my predecessor and her team. We will continue with that and contribute with some more activites in the field of fostering literarcy, e.g. reading rooms in Kayelitsha and so on.

"I look forward to working with South African and African publishers and am thrilled that we will have 15 African publishers at the CTBF due to the invitation programme which the Goethe Institut organises in collaboration with us as well as APNET.. It is important that we cement the success of the CTBF as a public event and grow its importance in the book trade. We are fortunate to have a focus on publishers coming from the Middle East and India, and will be bringing new innovations to the CTBF."