Obama grabs the spotlight in Europe, too
By Katrin Bennhold
Thursday, March 20, 2008
PARIS: If Renaud Bombard, head of the French publishing house Presses de la Cité, had planned the timing of Barack Obama's much celebrated speech on race and religion himself, he could hardly have done better.
On Thursday, two days after a speech that some commentators were calling one of the most powerful in recent U.S. political history, Presses de la Cité released the French translation of the Democratic presidential hopeful's best-selling memoir, "Dreams From My Father." It appeared in German bookstores on the same day, after being published in Italy in November.
"Obamania is becoming a reality in Europe," Bombard said in a telephone interview Thursday. "The hype surrounding his speech this week was quite something. Obviously that's great news for the book."
U.S. election fever is gripping Europe, editors and newspaper vendors say, citing increased sales each time a big primary takes place.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign to become the first woman president dominated headlines on this side of the Atlantic last year, but interest in Obama's spectacular rise and recent wobbles in opinion polls appears to have eclipsed the former first lady in newspapers and television talk shows in recent weeks.
The fact that a black man may become the Democratic presidential candidate has intrigued Europeans at a time when such a prospect still seems far off in most countries on the Continent.
"Dreams From My Father" is an intensely personal account of Obama's early life. The son of a Kenyan immigrant and a white American mother from Kansas, Obama recounts his childhood, youth and political awakening.
America's painful and complex history of race relations is one part of that story; the opportunities the country offered him - he became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review and the fifth African-American senator - is another.
Bombard is betting that the book will sell well. He has printed an initial 9,000 copies and does not exclude a second edition, especially if Obama wins the nomination.
Obama's other book, "The Audacity of Hope," a volume focused on the politics of the Illinois senator, had an initial run of 7,000 copies last October. Obama's soaring popularity prompted Bombard to print an additional 9,000 in January.
"I believe 'Dreams From My Father' will be more successful than 'The Audacity of Hope' because what fascinates people most about Obama is his personality and his unusual profile," Bombard said.
Bombard is not the only one confident that the Obama phenomenon sells. The French newspaper Le Figaro carried extracts from the book this week. And the candidate's speech Tuesday received widespread coverage in the European news media, where he has been compared to Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy.
On several news sites, articles about the speech were often among the most popular items. On the site of the International Herald Tribune, the text of the speech itself became the most e-mailed item within one hour and a half and stayed there all day.
Press coverage was broadly favorable. French and German newspapers from across the political spectrum applauded Obama's address as a nuanced and honest attempt to tackle America's debate on race.
"He had to face up to the subject of race - and he did it with dignity, clarity and moving honesty," the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote in an editorial.
The headline Thursday in the French daily Libération read: "Barack Obama successfully counterattacks on the race question."
If the primaries took place on this side of the Atlantic, Christine Ockrent, a French journalist who has written a biography of Hillary Clinton, said in a recent interview, "I think Obama would win."
