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Frankfurt Book Fair 2004
Arab Guest of Honor Stirs Controversy
The
world’s biggest book fair this year hosts as its guest of honor the 22 members
of the Arab League. The fair will serve as a platform for the Arab World to
present its cultures and literatures to the international community, and aims to
promote and facilitate a dialogue between the West and this little-understood
and often misrepresented region.
The
Frankfurt Book Fair was organized for the first time in the late 15th century, a
few years after the discovery of movable type by Johannes Gutenberg, and soon
distinguished itself from other book markets in both size and outlook. The
tolerant atmosphere of the early book fair can be illustrated by the fact that
it was the only market where the writings of Martin Luther were openly
distributed, at a time when many Germans considered him a heretic.
The
Book Fair has now become the biggest book fair in the world, with around 6,000
publishers from 115 countries participating every year. Furthermore, numerous
writers, poets, musicians, and other cultural figures are invited each year to
participate in the hundreds of lectures, book and poetry readings, debates,
musical performances, and seminars that enliven the essentially trade-oriented
event.
The
invitation of the Arab World as this year’s guest of honor has stirred lively
debate in both the Western and Arab media. Critical voices questioned the Arab
League’s ability to stage a program that would honestly represent current
trends within the literary world without excluding exiled and other
controversial writers. Others cheered the opportunity as an important chance to
improve and correct the biased image of the Arab world through displaying the
wealth and diversity of its cultural and literary heritage.
With
this special folder, IslamOnline.net aims at representing the different debates
that have been provoked by the Arab participation in the fair, as well as
providing interviews and background information about Arabic literature and
topics focusing on trends in literary translation. The folder will be updated
with new articles before and during the fair with more relevant background
information and direct coverage of the event itself.
In
“A
Chance to Meet and Reach Out to One Another” and “Arabic
Literature Needs Real Sponsorship, Not Medals” Amira Sayed al-Ahl
reports on the goings-on at the fair and assesses whether the Arab world has
succeeded in positively representing itself and in contributing to the
inter-cultural dialogue that was intended by the event.
In
“Occupational
Hazards” Ahdaf Soueif dives into the Ramallah literary scene and
interviews popular Palestinian writers about writing under occupation and
contradictions inherent in being a left-wing Israeli novelist.
In
“Qur’anic
Illuminations: A Spiritual Tour-de-Force in the Book Fair” 
Tarek Ghanem sheds light on the inner meaning and ‘immediacy’ of Islamic
art, in the context of a group of panels of Qur’anic illumination currently
presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
In
“The ‘Canon’ of
Modern Arabic Literature” Assia Moutahhir explores the history of
modern Arabic literature from the onset of the 20th
century while criticizing the problematic implications of formulating a
‘canon’.
In
“Arab
Publisher Speaks Out on the Frankfurt Book Fair” the deputy-director
of the Arab Publisher’s Association, Mohammed Rashad, speaks out about the
obstacles to publishing in the Arab World, reading trends in the Middle East and
his preparations for the fair.
In
“Dialogue With the President of the Frankfurt
Book Fair,” Volker Neumann provides us with a behind-the-scenes
impression of the organization of the fair, the negotiations with the guest of
honor, and his hopes and expectations for the event.
In
“Arabic Literature in Translation: A Survey,”
Peter Ripken gives a historical overview of the translation of Arabic literature
into Western European languages and sheds light on the causes for the lack of
translations from Arabic available on the Western book markets today.
In
“Translations as Caricatures of the Arab
World?” Samir Grees challenges the contention that translations from
Arabic are chosen exclusively on the basis of Orientalist stereotypes of the
Arab world and political sensationalism while expressing harsh criticism of the
Arab League for its perceived lack of support for literary production.
In
“Authors Without Books: Young Yemeni Literature
Is Looking for Its Place,” Arab Literature expert Günther Orth
uncovers the hidden pearls of a virtually unknown literature and describes the
struggles its authors face in a land where the publishing tradition is only just
being born.
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