“In the near future, Abu Dhabi will be the cultural center for the region,” was the main point that Jumaa Al Qubaisi, the Director of ADIBF, got across during a final round-up meeting about this year’s fair.

This ambition reflects not only the success of the 2010 version of the Book Fair, and the prospects for next year, but takes into account all of the varied activities that are going on in the region, from the Abu Dhabi Library to the Abu Dhabi Literature and Publishers Club to United Printing and Publishing—all of which are geared at getting people to read.

Over the past four years, the ADIBF has grown immensely, with this year being the largest yet. More than 800 exhibitors attended the 2010 Fair, and the floorspace was 30% larger than it was in 2009. On Friday, more than 42,000 visitors flooded the aisles, taking in all of the various displays and all of the cultural events.

There’s a lot more to explore at the fair in addition to the KITAB Sofa conversations and the Discussion Forum. Kids crowded into the Children’s Corner (wehre the KITAB Mobile Reading Bus is also on display) to see puppet shows, hear stories, and read while lounging on a pile of bean bags. Not that far away was the incredibly popular Show Kitchen, where celebrity chefs from around the world demonstrated how to prepare and serve a variety of foods.

The Ezone, which is new to this year’s fair, is giving the regional industry to the latest develops in the digitial world, from ebooks to print-on-demand, and a series of workshops on how to harness digital opportunities.

Each of these programs is pretty spectacular on its own, but taken as a whole it’s clear that this is just part of a much grander general initiative to transform Abu Dhabi into the new publishing hub for the Gulf Region. The ADIBF is only part of this overall goal, which has two major tracks: the professionalization of the publishing industry and the cultivation of the Arab book culture.

On the professional side, the announcement of the creation of Abu Dhabi Distribution—an innovative new distribution company for Arabic titles—in of monumental importance and will most definitely improve the flow of Arabic literature throughout the entire Arab World.

In terms of the social side of thigns, the Abu Dhabi Literature and Publishing Club is one of the most exciting new programs that was launched at the Fair. Throughout the year, this club will host a variety of professional and public programs, including publisher trainings, conferences on architecture, and conversations with world-famous authors.

During this final press conference, Khalid al Dhaheri, the manager of technical service for the Abu Dhabi Library, explained the incredible developments going on in this arena to get books into the hands of as many Abu Dhabi readers as possible. The National Library Initiative is centered around the idea of creating a social learning space and incorporating all different ways of interacting with the written word, from audio and e-books (the Library’s digitization project deserves an article of its own), to mobile libraries and high-tech library vending kiosks.

As ADIBF Managing Director Monika Krauss mentioned, “the content takes precedence over the form.” In other words, she’s less worried about the cup, and more concerned with the coffee. Or, put in more plain language—the goal of all these programs is to create great literature and get it in the hands of interested readers by whatever means necessary.

Kalima, the ADIBF, the new Club, the Abu Dhabi Library—put together, it’s quite clear that Abu Dhabi is well on its way to becoming one of the most important hubs in the Arab world for the production, promotion, and consumption of the written word.

For the first time in ADIBF history, the Book Fair organized a special “Market Focus” day to highlight the publishing scene and literary culture of Algeria. With good reason—although the Algerian private publishing industry is relatively young, it’s growing rapidly.

The key event in this one-day Focus on the Algerian Book Market was an overview presentation by Yassar Arafat Qana from the Algerian Ministry of Culture, who provided a great amount of data and information ranging from the history of publishing in Algeria, to ambitious new initiatives that are currently underway.

One of the most startling facts was the rapid growth over the past few years in the number of titles published in Algeria. In 2005, 2,265 total titles were released. That dropped slightly in 2006 before leaping up to 3,762 books in 2007. This is due in part to the fact that Algeria was the Arab Cultural Capital in 2007 and poured a great deal of money and resources into the publishing industry. To be more specific, this resulted in the publication of 1,221 books. What’s interesting though is that the number of titles produced remained at this level after the Arab Cultural Capital had moved on, with 3,955 books coming out in 2008 and over 4,900 in 2009.

A high percentage of these titles were schoolbooks—the one sector of the publishing market that isn’t open to private industry—but there were signficant increases in other sectors as well. It’s worth noting that although there are four National publishers, there is a huge number of private publishing houses in Algeria, with more than 560 officially registered and about 120 currently active presses.

The 130-year French occupation of Algeria played a large role in both the stunting and the development of this healthy publishing culture. One lasting impact is the bilingual book culture, with titles being published both in French and in Arabic. On the flipside, Hachette’s monopoly (more or less) of the publishing industry hindered the development of both public and private presses for many years. This dominance of the market was especially felt in the schoolbook market, which may be one reason that in 1964, when Algeria created its first National Publishing House, it closed off the textbook market to private houses. Another date worth noting is 1989, with the vast majority of private publishing houses coming into existence after the new constitution was adopted.

Although there’s been a huge growth in the number of books being produced over the past 20 years, distribution remains a big obstacle. Bookstores are starting to develop in the area, but the Algerian market is subject to a lot of the same challenges found in other countries in the Arab World. But the creation of a National Book Center will definitely make a huge difference in the creation, publication, and promotion of Algerian literature.

One of the most impressive and ambitious new initiatives undertaken by the National Book Center is the national library program. Implemented in 2004, the goal is to build 1,562 libraries and reading areas across Algeria’s 1,541 municipalities by the year 2014. Hundreds have already been built, including 30 more in 2010, and it sounds as if the NBC will reach its goal.

And it’s incredibly important to solve the distribution system. Not just to encourage the futher development and professionalization of the Algerian publishing industry, but to serve a voracious reading public. And if you don’t believe that Arabs are interested in reading, check these figures from the Algerian Book Fair, which has been taking place every Oct/Nov since 1988: more than 1 million visitors attended last year’s fair, with over 120,000 coming each day to visit the 320+ exhibitors (over 190 from outside of Algeria) and look at the 138,000 books on display. I’d be surprised if an American book fair could reach those numbers, but regardless, this is proof that Algerians are readers, and it bodes well for the future development of the Algerian publishing industry.

I was admittedly nervous about moderating a panel on best-sellers. Especially since the subtitle was “The Secrets Behind the Success.” In case you don’t know, my day job is running Open Letter, a nonprofit that’s part of the University of Rochester, definitely does not publish best-sellers. (How cool would it be for Ricardas Gavelis’s Vilnius Poker to be on the NY Times list? I think this would be proof of parallel universes or something.) I don’t even read best-sellers. Not that I’m a total snob or anything—OK, yes, I am somewhat of a book snob, but whatever, there’s not time enough to read everything—but I haven’t read Twilight, Harry Potter, or a single Tom Clancy novel.

Thankfully, I ended up moderating a panel of three of the most interesting book people I’ve met in Abu Dhabi. Peter Smith aka James Barrington aka James Becker aka Max Adams is a best-selling author from the UK who writes both spy-thriller books (think 24, but British, and not taking place in a single day, and not on TV) and historical-religious conspiracy fiction (think Dan Brown). Haissam Fadel is the enthusiastic Sales and Marketing Manager of the Arab Cultural Center, and the only Arab publisher who saw the potential in publishing the Twilight series. Narain Jashanmal (who will be writing for my real blog, Three Percent, in the future) is the general manager of Jashanmal Bookstores, and has a lot of interesting future of publishing/future of reading ideas.

Unlike most of the other panels I’ve witnessed, we simply had a discussion. No real presentations, no formal statements, just a conversation among the four of us about books, about how to reach readers, about what helps make a book take off.

It’s not easy to craft a best-selling book—always a crapshoot for publishers and authors—but Peter Smith pointed out a few interesting things: that it’s important to choose a name near the beginning of the alphabet (“Barrington,” “Becker,” etc.) and that the cover be designed in such a way as to be appealing to grocery stores (which sell books by the ton) and to be clear to the intended audience. As he put it, his novel Overkill with a plane flying out of an explosion on the cover, screams “boy’s toys,” screams military spy-thriller.

He also pointed out that it’s important to pick a genre that’s well-defined. The first novel he ever wrote—which is, and will likely remain, unpublished—was a cross-bred sort of thing that was partially a thriller-chase deal, but featuring aliens. Not enough sci-fi for sci-fi, and not enough thriller to be a thriller. Total category fail.

Branding of a series and/or author is another huge step to best-sellerdom. That’s why James Barrington writes books starring one particular character, and James Becker another. It’s no surprise that you can build an audience around a popular character or set of characters, and this is why agents and publishers love series. The sales for any individual book can be pretty solid, but aggregated across the series, sales reach a new level. See Twilight and its follow-up volumes.

I met Haissam last year, before Twilight was released. At the time, he was actually a bit nervous. Harry Potter wasn’t as successful sales-wise in the Arab world as it was elsewhere. So four volumes of vampire love wasn’t as obvious a sales slam-dunk as it might initially seem. But there were things working for it: namely the no-sex, no-alcohol thing.

Thanks to the movies, the quality of the translation (the Arab Cultural Center actually set up a blog to get feedback from readers about the translation—this really helped generate buzz for the ensuing three books), the cover, and worldwide appeal, Twilight has been a major success in Arabic. It’s sold more than 8,000 copies, which might not seem like much in comparison to the millions (?) of copies sold in English, but in the Arab world, books rarely sell more than 2,000. So this is HUGE.

Narain took a slightly different approach to the best-seller subject. Jashanmal is the largest English-language bookstore chain in the UAE and a healthy proportion of their sales are of best-sellers. But each outlet carries more than these top 50 or top 100 books. So one of the big issues for Narain is figuring out which books are the “best-sellers of the long tail.” The titles that won’t sell in the quantity that Twilight does, but do have appeal, will sell with regularity, and will generate profit for the stores.

In many ways, Narain pointed to a larger issue—that of general readership. What will get people into stores? What will keep kids reading after the age of 12? What will help expand the general number of readers in the Arab world so that Twilight sells 12,000 copies in the first few months, or even 20,000? This is a huge question that’s plaguing the publishing industry in different ways in different parts of the world, but is at the crux of a number of different debates and trends, including discussions about e-books, graphic novels, online marketing, and teaching literature in schools. Because no matter how many tricks you might use, you’ll never have a best-seller without a healthy reading culture.

This post was written for the amusement of a small handful of people. It’s pretty much insider baseball, and hardly about books. Enjoy!

Although I think about Heidi quite a bit, I have to admit that to prep for this event I visited Wikipedia to refresh my memory of the actual story. I know a lot about Heidi, but didn’t know that there’s an asteroid named after her. Or that NBC cut off part of the Super Bowl in 1968 to show the scheduled airing of a new made-for-TV version of Heidi. (That’s a decision that I can get on board with. Especially since Raiders fans missed their team’s big comeback. No wonder y’all are so bitter.) That the story has been adapted more than 20 times, including a 1937 version starring Shirley Temple, and a new live action movie in 2005. That’s a lot of Heidi-love.

Point being, Heidi is basically mythical. She represents something bigger. I mean, you don’t get a town named after you (“Heididorf”) without having some sort of universal appeal. A girl, her grandfather, the Alps, reading and writing, and quasi-mysterious healing. Heidi has a power in the book—in the affect on her grandfather, in helping Clara to recover and even regain the ability to walk—which is intriguing. Captivating even.

I didn’t realize this until Peter Stamm mentioned it during this panel (which I’ll get to in a minute, promise), but the cartoon version of Heidi—which is the version most people are familiar with—is from Japan, where the story of Heidi is incredibly popular. (Like Super Bowl interrupting popular.)

All this is to explain why Heidi, and why a panel that reeks with softcore double entendre. She really has global appeal. Which is what led Swiss novelist Peter Stamm to produce a new version of Heidi—although “new version” is overstating it, since he basically stuck to the original, but made it 1/10 of the size, a shrinking of Heidi that I’m not sure I approve of—and why Kalima (more on this program later, but for now, know that Kalima is responsible for translating hundreds(?) of works of world literature into Arabic) published an Arab edition of the book.

Actually, I’m not really going to get to this panel. My first attempt at live-blogging an ADIBF event led to Heidi-distraction and suddenly the panel was over. Ah well. The main point was that there are new versions of Heidi—one in German, one in Arabic—and that her translation is successful. She reaches audiences. I wholeheartedly approve of this admiration of Heidi. This is great work. Great publishing.

In order to further promote Arabic literary culture throughout the rest of the world, there needs to be more literary agents representing Arab writers, and there needs to be some sort of translation subvention program in place to support foreign publishers interested in these titles.

Those were the two key points that came out of the “Agents—How They Operate, How to Cooperate” professional panel that took place this afternoon and featured Ira Silverberg of Sterling Lord Literistic (USA), Nermin Mollaoglu of Kalem Agency (Turkey), Anna Soler-Pont of Pontas Agency (Spain), and Lucien Leitess of Unionsverlag (Switzerland).

The first half of the panel was spent on the basics—how to approach an agent (don’t be persistently pushy, try and meet them at book fairs), the role of an agent (to serve as a bridge between authors and publishers), the benefits of an agent (multitude of connection and a certain power due to the large number of clients represented)—with the latter part becoming both more theoretical and specific, as the esteemed panelists took questions from the audience.

Some of these questions were rather challenging. It’s no secret that there are occasionally tensions between publishers, agents, and translators, especially in today’s book publishing world. Nevertheless, the value of a good agent can not be over-stated. As Anna Soler-Pont pointed out, the main function an agent fulfills is the ability to sort through tons of books and authors, picking out the ones that are most worthy and bringing them to the attention of the proper publishers. Agents act as a sort of filter and information clearinghouse—something that’s absolutely crucial when it comes to regions like the Arab world, where there is no cultural organization responsible for specifically promoting Arabic literature abroad.

This became a big point of discussion, since the vast majority of European countries either have “book offices” or strong literary agencies that work to make international publishers aware of the best works being written in their country. The existence of these organizations has a huge impact on getting books translated and published all over the world. Frequently, these agencies are paired with translation subsidy programs—generally paid for by the government—that provide foreign publishers with the funds necessary to pay translators.

Turkey is a perfect case in point for how this can work. As Lucien Leitess explained, five years Turkey had no literary agents or subvention scheme. Enter Nermin Mollaoglu. In the four years since setting up the Kalem Agency and helping with the implementation of the translation funding program, Nermin has arranged more than 600 rights deals all of the world.

Ira Silverberg—who worked for an independent publisher before becoming an agent—referred on a few occasions to the idea of a “literary ecosystem” made up of diverse parts: authors, translators, agents, publishers, funding organizations, booksellers, and the like. For this ecosystem to remain as healthy as possible, all of these pieces have to work together. It’s absolutely the case that the Arab world has an amazing wealth of great literature, but for these works to reach as large of a worldwide readership as possible, more Arab authors and publishers need to start working with agents, and either the governments or some philanthropic organization needs to put up some money to support translations out of Arabic.

In advance of tonight’s Sheikh Zayed Book Awards ceremony (which will undoubtedly be quite elegant), there was a special panel discussion on the impact of literary awards on the Arab cultural movement featuring representatives from the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, the Sultan Bin Owais Award, and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

Conventional wisdom is that book prizes—and the requisite long and shortlists—are extremely helpful in bringing attention (and readers) to noteworthy books. As Body Tonkin pointed out, this is especially true in the case of the IPPF, which honors literature published in English translation. There’s a dearth of international literature making its way into English, and the vast majority of these books are ignored (or at least under-reported on) by the mainstream media. In some cases, the IPPF longlist is the first time these titles are brought to the attention of general readers.

For people like Boyd (and myself, and Azar Nafisi) who believe that “literature is a way to project and communicate stories of richness and humanity that the news media are never going to tell us,” getting more international fiction into the hands of readers is de facto a Very Good Thing. It’s through novels that we can start to respect and understand another culture. Or, in the words of Ezra Pound, “literature is news that stays news.”

Boyd did raise some concerns about the trappings of prizes, concerns that were echoed in some of the other panelist’s statements. One of the main goals of a prize such as the IFFP is to celebrate the diversity and plurality of what’s being produced. That an award like this can show us the range of voices out there, the variety of experiences. Unfortunately, by the very nature of a prize, of naming a single book or author as the “best,” one can actually reduce a region to a single author or two. It happens all the time that a single writer comes to represent a culture and is “the” person to read from that particular part of the world. In the States, Roberto Bolano fills that role in regards to Latin America, Jose Saramago does for Portugal, and Naguib Mahfouz does for the Arabic world. So there is a danger in awarding prizes—the danger of promoting just a small number of books that have “broken through” in some way. Or, as another panelist alluded to, the idea that prizes frequently honor the already-popular, the already-established, instead of using the power of the prize to confer respect onto an up-and-coming author.

One of the other dangers worth mentioning is the connection between literary prizes and governmental organizations. Regardless of panel independence, if a prize doesn’t stand on its own as its own institution, there will always be a cloud of suspicion that certain books were honored for political, instead of cultural reasons.

But on the whole, the culture of prize giving is an incredibly positive one. Coming from a part of the world where people barely read, much less read books from other parts of the world, anything anyone can do to help get a fantastic piece of literature into the hands of more readers is incredibly important. And hopefully over the next few years, even more prizes will come into existence—both in the Arab World and in the West—to celebrate the diversity of creative voices working in the world today.

I’m back in Rochester though, feeling more and more energized every sunny day that I can ride my bike to work, and ready to get back into all of this. Well, sort of. With the NCAA tournament starting in two hours, and a million-and-one things to catch up on, I think I need another day or so to get sorted. So instead of a number of thoughtful, well-put-together posts (as if that ever happens anyway), here’s a smattering of things:

• The just launched the to publish translations with commentary and essays on the art&craft of translation. You can download the entire first issue (in pdf format) by clicking the link above. Number of interesting pieces in here, including a translation by Peter Hodges of “Don’t Trust the Band” by Boris Vian.

• PEN America’s is now available online, and, as expected, is fricking loaded with material. Just look at the list of conversations: Anthea Bell & Doris Orgel (e-mail exchange), Nahid Mozaffari and Sara Khalili (audio), Gregory Rabassa, Edith Grossman, and Michael F. Moore (!!!!!!!). There’s also a number of good excerpts, including a piece from Robert Walser’s a few prologues from Macedonio Fernandez’s (everyone should read this), and a bit from Alejandro Zambra’s And that’s just scratching the surface . . .

• Next week we’re going to giveaway copies of Macedonio’s book to our Facebook fans, so if you’re not already one, you need to be. to become a fan and have a chance to win.

• Recently I had heard from a bunch of translators about a that Dalkey/U of I had launched through which translators can pay $5,000 to get their first full-length book translation published. Which everyone I heard from thought this was a total scam. In Dalkey’s defense, there is a lot a translator could learn from working closely with an editor on a particular manuscript . . . but to be honest, the publication aspect changes this—in my mind, and all the translators who forwarded this announcement to me complete with their witty remarks (thanks!)—from a low-residency MFA sort of set-up, to something more vanity and seedy. (But seriously, wtf is going on It’s like being punched in the brain! Or a way induce seizures in kids? Although there are a billion things to make fun of here—like the fact that it may well be the website ever—I’m not going to do it. Or at least I’m going to stop right now. Right. Now.)

In addition to a series of posts about the always interesting Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, we also have a few reviews coming up, including pieces on the new Peter Handke and Dubravka Ugresic titles.

Publishers interested in getting into this market (either getting their books—especially books for school kids—into this part of the world, or identifying great works to publish in translation) should definitely consider attending the fair. It’s an amazing opportunity, and outside of the fair itself, wandering the Grand Mosque or attending the Sheikh Zayed Book Awards are both unforgettable experiences.

Anyway, I just got an announcement about which authors are going to be attending this year, and am now even more excited about the possibility of going back to the ADIBF next March. (It runs from March 2nd until the 7th.)

Complete information about all of the authors who will be there can be found on the but here are some of the highlights (including Open Letter author Mathias Enard! If anyone from the ADIBF stumbles across this post and wants to invite me to interview Enard, I’d be more than willing . . . ):

Abdelkader Benali
Home country: Morocco
Language: Dutch
In brief: Abdelkader was born in Morocco but has spent most of his life in the Netherlands, where he has been hailed as one of the most important young writers in the Dutch language today. His first novel, published when he was only 21 years old, was recognised with a Geertjan Lubberhuizen Prize for best literary debut. Its successor received the Libris Prize for Dutch literature. He is also a published playwright and essayist.
Works include: ‘Wedding by the Sea’, ‘The Long-Awaited’

Adam Haslett
Home country: the United States
Language: English
In brief: With a best-selling debut short story collection that was a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize, was nominated for a National Book Award and has been translated into 15 languages, Adam is one of America’s most sought-after young authors. His work has appeared in the Atlantic, The Nation, The New Yorker, a recent volume of the annual ‘Best American Short Stories’ collection and many other places, and in 2002 he was named New York Magazine’s Writer-of-the-Year. He has been a visiting professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and at Columbia University. His highly anticipated first novel will be released in the US in early 2010.
Works include: ‘You Are Not a Stranger Here’, ‘Union Atlantic’

Alawiyya Sobh
Home country: Lebanon
Language: Arabic
In brief: This novelist, poet and outspoken feminist has been hailed internationally for the way she has used writing to fearlessly confront some of the region’s most difficult contemporary social issues. Alawiyya is also the founder and editor-in-chief of one of the Arab World’s most important women’s magazines. In 2006 she was awarded Oman’s Sultan Qaboos Prize for Cultural Innovation in the category of literature.
Works include: ‘Maryam of the Stories’, ‘World’

Amit Chaudhuri
Home country: India
Language: English
In brief: One of India’s most celebrated modern writers, Amit has published five novels and many short stories, essays, poems and works of literary criticism. He served on the judging panels for the 2001 IMPAC Dublin International Literary Prize and the 2009 Man Booker International Prize, and has lectured extensively at universities across the UK and US. He has received numerous awards for his fiction, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction and India’s prestigious Sahitya Akademi prize. Amit currently serves as Professor in Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia.
Works include: ‘A New World’, ‘The Immortals’

Hamdy El-Gazzar
Home country: Egypt
Language: Arabic
In brief: A relative newcomer to the Arabic literary scene, Hamdy’s debut novel made a splash when it captured the 2006 Sawiris Foundation Prize in Egyptian Literature. He is also the author of several plays and short stories, as well as a number of screenplays for Egyptian television’s Culture Channel.
Works include: ‘Black Magic’

Mathias Enard
Home country: France
Language: French
In brief: A native French speaker, Mathias spent many years studying Arabic and Persian in the Middle East, and his passion for the region is apparent in many of his works. His latest novel, which has generated significant international buzz for being composed of a single sentence more than 500 pages long, was awarded the Prix Décembre and the Prix du Livre Inter in 2009. He currently teaches Arabic at the University of Barcelona.
Works include: ‘The Perfection of the Shot’, ‘Zone’

Qaisra Shahraz
Home country: Pakistan
Language: English
In brief: Born in Pakistan and raised in the UK, Qaisra has been widely acclaimed by critics for producing novels, short stories and television screenplays that offer particularly human characterizations of life in her native country and of the experiences of Pakistani immigrants in the West. She is also an educator and creative writing instructor, and has led workshops and seminars on these subjects abroad and in the UK. Her debut novel received a Golden Jubilee Award , and she has won several Pakistan Television Awards for her screenwriting.
Works include: ‘The Holy Woman’, ‘Typhoon’

Sahar Khalifeh
Home country: Palestine
Language: Arabic
In brief: This widely translated novelist is considered by many to be the most important living Palestinian writer, and her books are taught in university courses around the world. A prominent women’s rights activist, Sahar is also the founder of the Women’s Affairs Center in Nablus, with branches in Gaza City and Amman. She has taught at the University of Iowa in the United States and at Bir Zeit University in Ramallah.
Works include: ‘Wild Thorns’, ‘The Image, the Icon and the Covenant’

Tarun Tejpal
Home country: India
Language: English
In brief: Five years ago Tarun was best known as the founder of ‘Tehelka’, an Indian media outlet with a reputation for groundbreaking public interest journalism. Now with two critically acclaimed novels under his belt, the first of which won the Prix Millepages in France and was lauded by Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul as “a new and brilliantly original novel from India,” he has earned himself a place as one of India’s leading contemporary authors.
Works include: ‘The Alchemy of Desire’, ‘The Story of My Assassins’