One of the most admirable aspects of the UAE is how much money is spent on cultural activities. The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture & Heritage does a remarkable job funding events (such as the book fair) and helping to cultivate the apperception and production of art in the region.

In relation to the book fair, this philanthropic drive manifests itself in a number of ways, especially in the funding of translations.There are two main translation funders in the region: Kalima (based in Abu Dhabi) and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation (based in Dubai).

Kalima was established just a few years ago by the aforementioned Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture & Heritage to implement the vision of H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, with the goal of reviving translation within the Arab world. Kalima’s core program is to translate 100 books a year into Arabic from a variety of disciplines, including history, science, and literature.

The plan is that every year Kalima will announce 100 titles that it wants to support. They then identify the translator, work at obtaining rights, and find the right Arab publisher to work with to assure the translated title reaches an appropriate audience.

The Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation has a similar mission of improving the number and quality of translations into Arabic, but approaches the situation in a slightly different fashion. Tarjem is their main translation program, and has an even more ambitious goal that Kalima, in that they want to sponsor 365 titles a year. (In other words, a translation a day!) Rather than identify the works to translate and involve themselves in the publishing project directly, Tarjem accepts applications from publishers and for the most worthy projects the foundation purchases 1,500 copies to distribute to libraries and schools throughout the Arab world.

In addition to this publishing program, the foundation runs the Turjuman program, designed to improve and encourage translation in the Arab world by providing training courses for translators and scholarships that provide translators with the opportunity to pursue a master’s degree in translation. There are other programs as well, including “Cultural Dialogue” programs with a variety of countries, a “Book in a Capsule” program that provides hurried readers with 20-page summary versions of prominent business books, and the Dubai International Children’s Book Fair.

The activities of Literature Across Frontiers is a great complement to these two foundations. LAF represents approximately twenty cultural organizations from across Europe that provide translation subsidies to publishers interested in translating their works. In addition, these organizations frequently produce pamphlets and other promotional materials to spread the word about their literature. Alexandra Buchler of LAF came to the fair to make more Arab publishers aware of these programs in the hope that there will be an increase in translations into Arabic from the “smaller languages” of Europe, such as Catalan, Finnish, or Latvian. Her overall goal is to help create networks between European publishers and Arabic ones, in hopes of developing relationships that lead to greater cultural exchanges.

Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of Finnish to Arabic translators out there (for example–this is true with a ton of countries), so LAF is also trying to create partnerships to support the development and training of translators.

Finally, Next Page is also at the fair to spread the word about “Encounters,” a program of the foundation to encourage translation and exchange between Arabic and the languages of Eastern Europe. Through this program they hope to establish better relationships between publishers in the two regions and supply translation subsidies to publishers of both areas. (A very logical and great complement to what LAF is doing.)

In addition to subsidies, Next Page produces some fantastically informative reports. Ina Doublekova gave me a copy of a recent study on “Translations of Books from Arabic in Four East European Countries after 1989,” which is really fascinating. According to the opening summary, over the last decade the average number of titles translated from Arabic into Bulgarian, Hungarian, Polish, and Serbia, is between 0 and 3 titles per year. (The entire study is available online at http://www.npage.org.) Hopefully thanks to Next Page—and its energetic and brilliant director Yana Genova—this situation will improve greatly over the next few years.

Overall, it’s very encouraging to uncover so many organizations all working to improve the flow of books both into and out of Arabic. It’s my belief that publishing across borders makes the world a better place–and right now there’s not enough publishing of this sort in the world.a

After spending a week in Abu Dhabi talking with Arabic publishers, looking at Arabic stands, I’m personally very interested in reading a few contemporary Arabic works. As most everybody knows, translation ain’t a specialty of American/UK publishers, so unfortunately outside of a handful of Mahfouz titles and Munif’s Cities of Salt, it’s unlikely you’ll find many other books on the shelves of your local bookstores.

That said, there are a few good sources and publications (which your bookstores should be able to order for you at least) that are worth checking out:

American University of Cairo Press is probably the cream of the crop. They publish upwards of 100 titles a year about the Middle East, ranging from academic books to general novels. Their three big categories are “Islamic Art & Architecture,” “Middle East Studies,” and “Modern Arabic Literature in Translation.” As more of a fiction reader than anything else, I picked up a copy of Gamal al-Ghitani’s The Zafarani Files, which was published just after it was announced that al-Ghitani won this year’s Sheikh Zayed’s Book Award for Fiction. (Instead of an overview or teaser about the book, I’ll just say that a full review will be available on the Three Percent website in the not too distant future.)

Saqi Books. The Alsaqi Bookshop is the UK’s largest bookshop specializing in Middle Eastern titles. And in addition to selling, they also publish books about the Middle East. Saqi Books publishes a wide range of titles from a number of languages and countries, and across a number of categories, including history, biography, culture & society, literature, philosophy & religion, and food & drink. Their “short stories by ___ women” series is a great introduction to writing from around the world. And in terms of the Middle East, Afsaneh: Short Stories by Iranian Women looks quite good.

In a Fertile Desert: Modern Writing from the United Arab Emirates was specially published for the ADIBF by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage. Featuring twenty stories by UAE writers, this is the first collection of Emirati short fiction to be published. As mentioned on the flap copy, fiction writing is a very new genre for UAE writers, having traditionally worked within the poetry tradition. Selected and translated by Denys Johnson-Davies–one of the best Arabic translators working today–this book in a fantastic introduction to the literature of the region.

One of the liveliest and interesting professional programs of the week was “How Did You Do It?” a special Women in Publishing Business Lunch that focused on innovative marketing strategies implemented by two independent presses.

Rana Idress of Dar al Adab (founded in Lebanon in 1953) opened the session by talking about the censorship challenges she faces as the publisher of “controversial” titles. Many of her books have been banned in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere for the political views, sex scenes, and religious content included in her titles. Having one’s books banned is a pretty substantial challenge to overcome in order to get your books in hands of readers. And this is a very serious issue resulting in a host of complications: one of their authors had copies of his own books confiscated at a Saudi airport (this led to the Lebanese government seizing all of the copies, which were then promptly released because “it’s only sex”); Dar al Adab has problems being allowed to present their books at certain book fairs, or frequently end up with the smallest of the small booths; and a lot of their titles aren’t available in bookstores.

Rana put forth four concepts that have helped them be very successful over the years: creating trust among readers in what they publish, participate in as many book fairs as possible (in order to sell directly to the public), actively campaign against censorship by making explicit what books have been banned where and for what reasons, and actively engaging with enthusiastic and politically engaged booksellers who might sell your books in the back alley (so to speak).

These sort of “reader-centric” practices were echoed in Urvashi Butalia’s presentation. Urvashi is co-founder and publisher of Zubaan Books in New Delhi, the first feminist publishing company in India. And furthermore, she is the founder of the Indian chapter of Women in Publishing. In contrast to Rana, Urvashi doesn’t face many censorship problems, but she does have a hard time distributing her books (a common theme among Indian and Arabic publishers) and has implemented a number of “reader-centric” activities to help her titles to find more readers.

A great story she told was about Know Your Body a guide written by village women to present information about the female body. (Quick side story: When the authors were putting this book together and showing it around, they got a lot of complaints regarding the illustration of the naked female body included in the book. Villagers said that this drawing “wasn’t realistic” because you never saw naked women. To get around this, the women designed a “pop-up” sort of construction featuring a clothed woman–and clothed man–and a tab with which you could “flip up” their clothes and see what’s underneath.) These women brought the book to Zubaan and asked them to publish it. They did, and the women authors went out to a number of villages to present the book to other women who might be interested. Before it was even available, Zubaan had sold out its first printing, and now over 60,000 copies have been sold, and not one of those copies was sold through a bookstore.

Zubaan is also very active online and via Facebook, and has established a “Words of Women” monthly reading and conversation series featuring a different woman author each month–sometimes the speaker is published by Zubaan, sometimes she’s from another publisher. All of these activities have led to the situation in which a number of enthusiastic readers go into Indian bookstores to pester the booksellers about when the next Zubaan title will be available. These fans are buying books not based on the book or the review or anything else, but on the fact that they know what to expect from Zubaan.

Kitab is trying to help facilitate the creation of a Women in Publishing chapter in the Arab world (although they can’t put the whole thing together themselves). Urvashi described some of the activities of the Indian chapter, which has monthly meetings in which to exchange information or listen to a guest speaker, and an annual party sponsored by two women who own both a bookstore and hotel chain. Based on her presentation it’s clear that the WIP chapters are extremely useful, and a great opportunity to create a network of publishing women who can share information about how to publish/market outside of the mainstream.

To celebrate Beirut being the UNESCO World Book Capital 2009, the Hay Festival has created Beirut39, a three-day festival celebrating 39 of the best Arab writers under the age of 39.

Nominations for the 39 will come from publishers, literary critics, and members of the public (visit www.beirut39.com for more details on how to vote), and the final list will be selected by four famous authors: Abdo Wazen (poet and cultur editor of Al-Hayat), Hoda Barakat (author of The Tiller of Waters), Maher Jarrer (Palestinian critic and professor at the American University of Beirut), and Elias Khoury (playwright, essayist, journalist, and prizewinning novelist of Gate of the Sun and Yalo, among other titles).

The final 39 names will be announced in September of this year, and the Beirut39 festival will take place March 4th through 7th, 2010. Approximately 50 events will take place over this period and throughout the city of Beirut, focusing on a wide range of literary topics.

To further promote these “39 under 39″ an anthology of short stories will be produced in Arabic, English, and Spanish editions and promoted throughout the world.

Current partners in the Beirut39 project include Beirut UNESCO World Capital of the Book Committee, Banipal, The British Council, Lebanon, and Metaform X.

One of the most interesting panels I’ve attended here at the book fair was the “Business Potentials of Digital Publishing” seminar that took place this afternoon. This is a topic that I’m personally really interested in, and following a few disparaging comments about e-books in the Arab Market Overview session, I couldn’t wait to hear about what kind of digital projects are going on in this region, and what Arab publishers thought of the brave new e-world.

Dalia M. Ibrahim of Nahdet Misr Publishing & Printing in Egypt–which happens to be the Arabic publishers of the Harry Potter books–put forth a strong presentation about the need for e-content, and more importantly, the need to create and distribute this content in a smart fashion. It’s easy to recognize the potential of e-books and other forms of online content, but as Dalia has experienced at Nahdet Misr, where over they past six years they’ve spent a lot on e-projects without receiving a return on investment, there are a lot of obstacles that have to be overcome to make this a viable model.

The way that Dalia and Ramy presented internet use in the Arab world was pretty interesting. According to both of them, although internet use increased by 1000% between 2000 and 2007, only 10% of the searches by Arab users were for “meaningful” information. (Obviously this is a bit of a value judgement, but they compared searching for information about a potential health problem as meaningful versus chatting and IMing as meaningless.) A corollary to this situation is that there is a lack of worthwhile content available online in Arabic. According to Ramy, “unlike the west, there aren’t even very many personal webpages.”

This situation can be seen as a great opportunity, and Dalia called on Arab publishers to invest in the future and start creating e-content so that their future market share will be that much greater. With a lack of immediate economical incentives, she also called for governments and NGOs to supply funding to publishers to allow for the creation of culturally valuable e-content.

Ronald Schild–who works with Libreka! (exclamation point theirs)–provided a slick, well-organized, effective overview of the potentials of the e-book market, providing a case against allowing Amazon and Google to dominate the marketplace, and instead arguing for a more open market with several modes of distribution. He also offered some “best practices” to publishers entering the e-world, including the need to stop piracy, the need to offer your whole catalog as e-books instead of just the best-sellers, the need to leave behind the insanities of DRM, and the need for publishers to “be fast.”

All of this is very interesting, and actually offers one potential solution to the distibution difficulties existing in the Arab world: Instead of trying to figure out how to deliver books from one country to another continent and sell them at a reasonable price, why not just work towards developing e-books, which can be downloaded from anywhere at a (potentially) cheaper price?

Another technology-related solution that’s come up a few times is the idea of decentralized short run printing. Basically, the idea is that there could be ”book centers” in every Arab country equipped with similar short run digital printing equipment. So to avoid shipping costs under this model, a book published by an Egyptian publisher, let’s say, would be digitally sent to the book centers where there is a market for the book (different countries have different censorship standards) and then printed in quanties of 50, or 300, or whatever is needed. (The number that keeps getting bandied about is that the average book sells around 1,500 copies throughout the Arab world.)

Unfortunately, there were only a few Arabic publishers who attended this whole session, but everyone who did was very engaged and excited to talk about all the opportunities that e-publishing presents. And according to Ramy, this is another market that foreign publishers could participate in, and which could serve a way to increase the interactions between Arabic publishers and the rest of the world.

As mentioned earlier, in addition to copyright and piracy issues, the other main emphasis at the ADIBF is educational publishing. To this end, the fair organized a two-day “Education Chapter Conference” to provide publishers and educators with information about the changes and projects going on within the education sector.

Yesterday, Dr. Robert Thompson, head of special projects at the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) gave a presentation about all the various reform projects going on in Abu Dhabi related to curriculum change, teaching methods, and the creation (and restocking) of libraries.

All of these inititatives sound really promising, and are great opportunities for publishers, especially those publishing content-appropriate books in English. One of the key problems facing students entering the university–where classes are taught in English–is their command of the English language. In an attempt to address this, the ADEC is working with publishers to provide better resources to teachers, incluiding teacher training and better English and Arabic source materials. (I believe inititative like this is what brought Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation into existence.)

Another interesting–although also pretty depressing–part of his presentation was about the library situation in the region. When the ADEC went around to visit local libraries, they found loads of empty shelves, that is, in the libraries that weren’t locked up. To rehab this situation, ADEC is trying to fix 300-500 school libraries, restocking the shelves (with an average of 18-20 books per student!), making the library more accessible to the community, and including resources forr parents to help with the education process.

Another fantastic program to promote education and reading among young children (and which explains the heaps of excited kids wandering the halls of the fair) is the voucher program. Every year, His Highness Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahayn, who gives 4 million UAE Dirham (approx. $1.08 million USD) to local schools and colleges to provide vouchers to students to use on educational books at the fair.

The Educational Chapter wrapped up today with a number of presentations (the conference ran from 9am to 4:30pm), including “Looking to the Future: Developing Effective and Resourceful Learners” by Roy Leighton and “Q&A: The Neuroscience of Learning” by Dr. Andrew Curran, but it sounds like this will be a part of the ADIBF again in the future.

One of the larger topics at the ADIBF is the professionalization of the Arab publishing world. As I’ve mentioned earlier, there is no pan-Arab distribution system, there’s a good deal of piracy and copyright infringement, etc. The “Spotlight on Rights” program (see related post) and accompanying seminar on how to buy and sell rights is just one example of the way in which the Book Fair is serving as a place to sell books, find out about books, and learn more about the industry as a whole.

Thankfully, the desire to further professionalize the field won’t end with the closing of the ADIBF. In fact, there are three exciting initiatives presented at the fair that will build on this idea: the establishment of the UAE Publishers Association, a special publisher training seminar in June, and the International Publishers Association Copyright Symposium in Abu Dhabi next year.

The UAE Publishers Association was officially announced earlier this month, and presented at the swanky Gourmand party that took place last night, featuring delicious food, muzak versions of pop hits from the 80s, and occasional dancing. The UAEPA will be headquartered in Sharjah and work to represent UAE publishers both domestically and abroad and help to develop the industry as a whole.

Also presented last night was the IPA Copyright Symposium Abu Dhabi, which will take place from February 28th – March 1st in Abu Dhabi. Sponsored by Kitab, the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture & Heritage, the International Publishers Association, and the Arab Publishers Association, the symposium will, in the words of IPA Secretary General Jens Bammel, be a “unique opportunity to discuss international copyright policy and practice as well as network and find new business contacts.”

On top of both of these initiatives, in June, the Akademie des Deutschen Buchhandels will launch a series of four seminars to train publishing professionals. The Akademie–which is based in Munich–will provide information about editing, marketing, distribution, and management. Sessions include some theoretical information, but mostly these are very hands on seminars, with case studies, and tons of practical information.

Of the four seminars that will take place in 2009, two of them are aimed at CEOs and the other two will be for senior level employees. All of these events are sponsored by Kitab, the Goethe Institut, and the Foreign Office of Germany, and seven fellowships will be offered for each session, covering the cost of the flight and hotel.

Earlier today Ursula Holpp took our group of journalists on a quick tour of the fair, introducing us to some of the most influential and interesting Arab book market representatives. After spending even just a couple hours walking around, trying to figure out what particular publishers are up to. It’s easy to identify the cookbooks and books for kids, but others? Could be history, memoir, novels, poetry, philosophy . . . without knowing Arabic it’s more than a bit tricky and a bit daunting.

Anyway, Ursula did a fantastic job exposing us to a range of publishers and distributors–from the publisher of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight to very literary presses to the Al Mutanabbi Bookshop, which is a fascinating outfit.

First off, for European/U.S. readers reading this, the idea of a “bookshop” in the Arab world is a bit different than how we use the term. From talking to Dawood Salabbai of Al Mutanabbi, it became clear that a “bookshop” was also a distributor, a book fair exhibitor, a wholesaler of sorts, and an actual book shop.

Al Mutanabbi is one of the largest bookshops in the Arab world, with sales in three continents and sixty countries. In addition to traveling to book festivals all over the world, Al Mutanabbi also has nineteen physical stores throughout the Gulf. (The home office is in Dubai.)

Educational books (for all ages, from the very young to the university folks) represent Al Mutanabbi’s primary business, along with medical books, and computer titles. One thing that’s interesting is that almost all of the titles are English imports, something that Dawood had a lot of strong opinions about. Rather than seeing English as an “invasive species” (a somewhat common view as English seems to be spoken virtually everywhere and hundreds of other languages are dying out), he sees it as a real unifier, or even as the mission behind his business. By helping people to learn English–through educational books, and other useful titles–he’s opening up the world, and providing people with a way in which to interact across boundaries and cultures.

Mona Henning of Dar Al-Muna had a somewhat different viewpoint. As a native Arabic speaker, she claimed that “knowing your mother tongue is always a treasure.” Her goal in launching Dar Al-Muna was to translate Scandinavian books (especially Swedish titles, since that’s where she lives and the publishing house is based, and children’s books) into Arabic, and make sure that the culture of this “small country” was represented and available to Arabic readers instead of the standard English/German/French titles.

Some of her publications include Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking and Where the Wild Things Are. (To digress for a moment: in publishing Pippi Longstocking, Mona didn’t edit or change anything, and hasn’t run into any censorship or sales problems. However, when the book was first published in Germany, Pippi no longer carried a ”pistol” but rather a ”water gun.”) These titles are sold in a number of Arabic countries, through book fairs (she echoed the common complaint that there is no distribution system to make the books available throughout the Arab world), but most of the sales are to the 300,000+ Arab speakers living in Scandinavia along with a variety of libraries, schools, etc. And to provide an idea of the sales levels, for most books she prints around 3,000 copies, but with Pippi she’s sold over 35,000 copies to date.

One of her new experiments is the Arabic publication of the international Swedish superstar Henning Mankell (who will be at the ADIBF later in the week). Unlike the U.S., UK, and I suspect the rest of Europe, where Scandinavian crime fiction is the hot thing in translation, the Arabic world has yet to be exposed to crime fiction in general. This may sound like a slam dunk of a publishing idea (as does Twilight, but that’s a different post), but one thing that both Dawood Salabbai and Mona Henning both commented on was the lack of reading for pleasure in the Arab world. (Actually, a number of people mentioned this, and it seems intricately related to the presence of a ton of educational publishers, distributors, etc. displaying at the fair.)

Asked how sales for Mankell’s first two titles were going, she said that these had only been out for a couple weeks, and to “ask her next year.”

Bachar Chebaro, general manager of Arab Scientific Publishers and Secretary General of the Arab Publishers Association, kicked off this year’s professional program with his presentation on “News from the Arab Book Market.” As a member of the younger generation that’s unfamiliar with the history of the Arab book market, this was invaluable, providing a very interesting overview of the state of publishing in the Arab world.

There were a few major themes that Chebaro drew on throughout his speech: that Lebanon and Egypt were the two “publishing hubs” of the Arab world, that distribution (especially across borders) is a huge problem, and that copyright infringement is another massive problem (and is related to the aforementioned distribution difficulties).

Unfortunately, there aren’t any reliable statistics about publishing in the Arab world. ISBNs haven’t been assigned properly, books haven’t been sent to a central recording office, etc., and as a result all figures are approximate and inexact. That said, Chebaro used data from neewlafurat.com (the largest Arab online bookstore) to compare production among a number of countries and across a few subjects.

In terms of production by country, Lebanon and Egypt were the two leaders, with Lebanon producing 3,121, 4,165, and 3,330 books over the years of 2006, 2007, and 2008, and Egyptian publishers bringing out 3,016, 2,960, and 2,310 titles over that same period. (In contract, Syria brought out 889, 886, and 1,170 books during that same three-year time period.) The importance of Lebanese and Egyptian publishers is even more evident if you look at the recent shortlist for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Although the six finalists hail from Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Tunisia, five of the titles were published by Lebanese publishers and the sixth by an Egyptian house.

According to Chebaro, the influence of Egyptian and Lebanese publishers can be attributed to the more advanced distribution systems in both countries. There is no “mega-distribution” system in the Arab world, so getting books across borders and into other countries can be quite difficult. Addressing this is one of the main priorities of the Arab Publishers Association, and could go a long way in cultivating a larger audience for some of these works (Chebaro lamented the fact that the print run for most Arab books is between 2,000 and 3,000 copies for the whole Arab world and its 340 million plus inhabitants) and in solving some of the region’s piracy issues. The way Chebaro described it, in place of an international distribution system, there exists a network to pirate best-selling books and academic texts, bringing these titles to other parts of the Arab world sans copyright agreements.

This is a big issue for the Arabic publishing world, and in fact, at last year’s ADIBF, a number of publishers weren’t allowed to exhibit because of known instances of copyright infringement. The number turned away this year is apparently much lower (due in part to past rejectees opting not to reapply), and to encourage a greater awareness of copyright issues, this year there’s a special “Focus on Rights” session and a $1,000 subsidy offered to publishers who negotiate and purchase rights at the fair. (More on this tomorrow.)

Going back to figures for a moment, in terms of publishing categories, there were 7,230, 7,080, and 5,910 books written originally in Arabic and published across the Arab world in 2006, 2007, and 2008 respectively. In comparison, there were 1,480, 1,880, and 1,650 works translated into Arabic came out over that same time period.

In terms of translation, the subsidy programs from the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation and Kalima that are responsible for at least some of these titles published in translation. According to Chebaro, most translation are academic, techincal, and scientific works, but there is a more recent movement to publish novels, children’s books, philosophical works, and current affairs titles. Of course, Chebaro pointed out that translation should go both ways, both into and out of Arabic, but that typically there are more translations into Arabic than out of it.

Overall it seems that in spite of the problems, there’s a great opportunity in the Arab world. There is a strong interest in continuing to translate more foreign works into Arabic, and there are a lot of interesting books to be uncovered. And as the distribution system continues to develop (maybe e-books could play a role in this?), the book market should continue to expand.

After twenty-some-odd hours of travel (including a twelve-hour flight in a seat with a busted entertainment center that kept restarting and restarting as if it was possessed), I’m here in Abu Dhabi, at the Book Fair, waiting for the opening ceremony. Along with Ed Nawotka, I’ll be blogging all week about the goings-on here at the fair, including posts about the two big literary awards celebrated during the fair (Ed will be posting about yesterday’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction ceremony shortly), the various educational programs, facts and figures about the Arabic book market, etc.

This year’s fair is the largest to date, with 637 exhibitors from 52 different countries—a substantial increase from last year’s fair, which featured 482 exhibitors from 42 countries. Some of the countries represented for the first time include Australia, Korea, Italy, and Austria. As a result, the overall exhibition space increased by 14%.

I haven’t had much of a chance to walk around the fair, but the convention center—like much of Abu Dhabi—is quite impressive with a cavernous entrance hallway and clean, well-organized booths. More to come after the opening ceremony.