THE GUARDIAN: Western publishers are launching a drive to tap the Arab world for new stars, hoping to bridge the language gap with more than 200 million native Arabic speakers - and make money from selling books.
Bloomsbury announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair yesterday that it is to launch a new Arabic-language publishing house, Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, in partnership with the Gulf state. "The emphasis so far in Qatar has been on literacy, and our second challenge is how to move from literacy to literature to create a culture," said Abdel-Rahman Azzam, a spokesman for Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, the emir's consort and the chair of the Qatar Foundation.
The venture hopes to find new talent to build on the success of Egypt's Alaa Al-Aswany and Afghanistan-born Khaled Hosseini, whose respective novels The Yacoubian Building and The Kite Runner have been international bestsellers.
Azzam said the Arabic literary world was on the cusp of a boom similar to that enjoyed by India, home of this year's Booker prize winner, Aravind Adiga.
Western interest in Arabic literature has been growing despite a paucity of published new works. Arabic is the fifth-most spoken language worldwide, with 206 million native speakers. Many feel that globalisation and the domination of English have negatively affected their native tongue. But Gulf oil and gas wealth - and the competitive urge to create and buy signature international brands - has opened up possibilities. Publishers Seek New Talent in Arab World >>> Alison Flood in Frankfurt and Ian Black | Thursday, October 16, 2008
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