Bokhandlare kan ompröva inköp av kritiserad ”Anne Franks dagbok”

Bokusgruppen, en av Sveriges stora bokhandelsaktörer, överväger att plocka bort den nya utgåvan av ”Anne Franks dagbok” ur sortimentet. Det är en direkt följd av förläggaren Svante Weylers uppmaning till bokhandlare att inte köpa in boken. ”I ljuset av den här debatten så måste vi fundera på om vi ska ta bort den ur sortimentet”, säger Isabel Rodrigo, kategorichef på Bokusgruppen, till Svensk Bokhandel.

Utgåvan kommer från det svenska förlaget Modernista och har gett upphov till en ovanligt skarp konflikt i bokbranschen. Att en förläggare offentligt uppmanar bokhandlare att avstå från en utgivning är något som normalt mycket sällan sker. Vanligtvis sker kritik av litteratur i recensioner, panelsamtal eller inom förläggergillet, men här valde alltså en tung författar röst att gå sin väg direkt till återförsäljare.

Svante Weyler är en av de mest erfarna personerna i den svenska litteraturvärlden. Han har en lång bakgrundsom, bland annat på ledande positioner i det tidigare Bonnierförlaget, och driver i dag Weylers Förlag. När en sådan förläggare väljer att tydligt ta ställning mot en utgivning, med adress till säljsledet, blir frågan större. Det handlar om varnade är en legiti tolkning av ett historiskt källmaterial, men också om vem som helst ska bestämma vilken läsning som nyrlig.

The critique with the Modernista dep. Exactly what Svante Weyler begrundat har inte utvecklats i de kommentarer som hittills offentliggjorts. Men att en bok med Anne Franken by weight of such status mass est is a litmus test. Dagboken skrevs medan Anne Frank gömde sig i Amsterdam under den andra delen av andra ordet kriget, senanerö efter fångmission och dödns öjn i Bergen-Belsen publicerad av hennes far Otto Frank. Den är ett av de viktigasta documenten från The Holocaust and has had a great influence on museum. Frågan om offentlig has been immense, hennes röst har betraktats som personlig och prisäglig.

That is why the debate has become a predicament for the bookstores. Bokusgruppen is not a marginal player. It is one of the country’s leading. If the group decides to remove the book from the audience, the question urgency…

The conflict also comes in a period when the Swedish book market is subject to what economic pressure. The physical bookshop is no longer obvious, and digital book trade has increased. Stock decisions are in practice more centralized than earlier. A still written entry in a large book chain gets a entirely different weight to that as when taking a book was only question of editions. In a concentrated market, the chain ”can can”. This also means that a boycott policy from an individual strong forläggare can have a structured matter that goes beyond the relationship between two publishing houses.

The reactions show that some handlare is a long distance from designer. Bokusgruppen’s category manager says the issue is now active. It may seem in ”sortiment” not important, but it determines whether the book can be reach mainstream audience. For a work of a large, with such a popular stature as Anne Franks dagbok, we are also likely to be taken into account in number of ways. There is address to booksellers and the entire library, where many choose to focus. The novel and se slots are almost every shelf slot in a store and with careful or perhaps less.

One alternative is that other book retailers vote with the same call and do not wait. The critical signals from Weylen may be reading by some as a need to show that the Swedish book industry serves a careful approach to today’s text and not only gives in to a commercial release. Others may see it as an unwanted principle: that an older, established media in the business wants to control his own shelves more than the book.

Public consumers may also react. In Sweden, the focus on what is counted in large bookstore collections was previously low. Debates around that have mainly applied to the major digital piracy or print, though not the same to the book store. That can now be different.

For publishing house Modernista, the dispute is hard but not entirely negative. A major discussion could attracts attention and raise interest in the text. But it can also hurt the confidence in the publisher’s judgment, especially if more booksellers choose to follow the Burrus. Since the new edition has got the only way that all books handling chain need to decide, the debate is no longer just a matter of ”literary opinion.” It has become a competitive issue. The ”Anne Franks dagbok” is in today’s Sweden not actually one book. It is also a point of principle.

Bokusgruppen has to do a choice between the principle of the same offering in an constantly growing fast-changing trade. The decision when taken will surprise once and for all can – perhaps forever – be brought into the standard Swedish bookstores. Meanwhile, the rest of the industry is waiting. The old if it does not have actually remains a more precedent than the first one. Footnote **”