Speaking volumes and telling tales

Anywhere's a good place to get to grips with a book © Royalty-Free/Corbis

Most people know the pleasure of curling up with a book, but sitting down with a book and listening to it speak is not so common.

That’s the experience enjoyed by visitors to the recent Belluard festival in the western Swiss city of Fribourg, whose events included a human library.

“The human library works like a normal library. You go there, there’s a catalogue, you choose a book. The only difference is that the book is a real person,” festival director Sally de Kunst explained to swissinfo.ch.

“You take the book to the reading room and can consult it for up to 45 minutes. We have travel guides, novels, geography books, books on IT – very different types of books with different titles. The reader can talk or listen to the book for 45 minutes and then bring it back.”

The festival library had about 60 books: volunteers found by advertising, media reports and through personal contacts. Finding them had been surprisingly easy; to keep the library manageable they even had to stop taking new books, de Kunst said.

But what’s the difference between a human library and just talking to someone?

“I think it brings people together who normally don’t meet and it gives them an opportunity to go into a more thorough discussion, without the everyday chitchat,” de Kunst explained.

It’s up to the reader how they use the book: they can focus on one aspect, they can simply listen to the book, or they can have a dialogue with it.

Sylviane Tille, an actress and theatre director, was in charge of the artistic coordination – although, as she told swissinfo.ch, she insisted to participants that being a book wasn’t about acting.

“I told them that the main thing was that they should want to share something. I didn’t want people to take a book with them and read it, or tell us what’s in it – you can do that in an ordinary library. We wanted something they know all about – their job, something they are passionate about, that sort of thing.”

Anyone for nothing?

The idea was to have “the most varied library possible”, she said, and that was certainly swissinfo’s experience when trying it out.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that a journalist with an international audience should choose books with a multicultural bias.

“Khong Sang’s fantastic journey to X destinations” was the book of Khongsak Sangkhamanon, who teaches English at the Rajamangala Institute of Technology in Thailand. He was at the festival to see how the library worked, since he plans one back home.

And how better to see how it works, than to be a book himself? “I would like you to know about the magic of going somewhere beyond science,” was the introduction to his book which described his experience with monks at a meditation centre, and how prayer helped him in his daily life.

Thailand is one country where Zarina Reinhard-Charlesworth is probably not particularly at home, but her book “Multicultural Life” was a dazzling exposition of how it is possible for one person to live several different cultures. Holding four passports, the daughter of a British father and an Indian mother, married to a French Swiss and whose children were born in…. The head swims!

Then on to West Africa, where development worker Corinne Thévoz spoke about her passion for textiles and what they show about local society. But rather than moving on to her Japanese textiles, we got diverted to the problems facing Haiti – that’s what happens when you have an interesting book.

Staying in Africa, but looking at it very differently, Corinne Sanou’s book was “A Burkinabè among the Swiss”; skipping again from chapter to chapter swissinfo learned about her life in Burkina Faso and Switzerland and ended up hearing a dramatic rendering of a Burkinabè folk tale.

Different as those four were, there was vaguely a common thread. But the book chosen by artist Antonio Louro was something else again.

“It was really, really interesting. My book was 15 minutes of nothing: 15 minutes without talking,” he told swissinfo.ch. “And then we talked for 15 minutes about nothing. It was really funny.”

Marie, an artist who didn’t want to give her full name, chose a book about dance by a dancer. They didn’t just talk. It was a performance as well. “I gave her a colour, and she expressed herself in dance about the colour I chose.”

Everyone is different

The books had different reasons for coming, and different experiences with their readers.

“I guess because I like books so much, the idea of being one was intriguing,” said Reinhard-Charlesworth.

“I was really keen to talk about my job, but I wanted to include something a bit more imaginative,” explained Thévoz.

“The conversation was different each time. Sometimes it was the fabrics, sometimes the development work. Or people talked about their own travels and we compared our experiences and perceptions.”

Sanou had worried that people wouldn’t want to borrow her because she is African. “But I found that people like to find out about other cultures, and hear about things they don’t usually come across.”

Enthusiasm

Since both French and German are spoken in Fribourg, this added an extra complication. So dictionaries were on hand. But they were not in great demand: many books and many readers turned out to be bilingual too.

Marinka Limmat, an artist from Fribourg currently living in Berlin was the first dictionary to be borrowed. “At first I just translated the questions and answers, but in the end it really developed into a three-way conversation,” she admitted. “I thought the reader asked good questions, it was very interesting.”

The library was quite busy on its opening night. All 11 books on offer were taken out at least once, the organisers said.

And books and readers were enthusiastic. Several books said they would do it again, and some readers would be willing to have a go too.

“Why not?” said Marie. “A book with a lovely cover!”

Why not indeed? Perhaps there might even be readers for “A Tale of Swissinfo”.

Julia Slater in Fribourg, swissinfo.ch

Human Library

The idea of the human library was developed by a Danish youth organisation, Stop the Violence

The first such library was organised at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark in 2000.

The initial idea was to combat prejudice; the books were people representing groups often confronted with prejudices and stereotypes who face exclusion and discrimination.

The idea quickly spread to Hungary and Norway.

Human libraries have since been held in countries all over the world.

Countries expected to host libraries for the first time this year include not only Switzerland, but also Egypt, Israel, Kenya, the Maldives and Pakistan.

They are held for a limited period; settings include public libraries, cultural festivals, schools and book fairs.

There have also been travelling libraries in trains or buses.

The movement is supported by the Council of Europe.

The organisers of the library in Fribourg used the concept to bring people of all kinds together, not simply to fight prejudice.

A reading room in the city’s cantonal and university library was set aside for the event.

Each of the 60 or so books in the library was available for borrowing on just one or two days of the festival.