March 18, 2008

Literature in the Arab world and a $50,000 prize

Word of an interesting new Prize for literature comes from George Walden writing at the Jerusalem Press:
Arab 'Booker' stirs up passion
Arabs have translated about 100,000 books over the past millennium; that's almost the average that Spain translates in a year, according to one UN report by Arab scholars.

The number of non-religious works issued in Arabic remains tragically low, the study adds, noting a lack of reliable data.

Perhaps the International Prize for Arabic Fiction could help change this sad record. The contest's first winner, Egyptian Baha Taher, was selected in Abu Dhabi today.

One aim of the $50,000 award, modeled on Britain's Man Booker Prize, is to stimulate interchange between Arab countries, where mutual suspicions can be endemic. In this it has already succeeded, judging from the London news conference where the six finalists were announced in January.

As the chairman of the Russian Booker Prize for Fiction, I'm inured to passionate debates about literature. Yet this was the liveliest exchange between journalists and a book-judging panel that I've ever witnessed.
And a bit more:
Arab reluctance to translate Western works is reciprocated: Western publishers hesitate to issue novels from the Mideast. So an added bonus to this new prize is that Tetra Pak heiress Sigrid Rausing, who owns U.K. publishers Granta and Portobello, has pledged to fund an English translation of the winner.

No doubt squalls lie ahead, as this or that mullah or authoritarian regime proscribes this or that winning novel. Yet if stable and open societies are ever to emerge in the Middle East, the key battles must be fought with ideas, and by Arabs themselves. If ever there were a role for the right kind of socially engaged novel, it is here.
Very cool -- the war of cultures is at heart, a war of ideas and if we can open up the Islamist culture and let it examine itself as well as examine Western culture, we will see some wonderful changes. Get them out from under the yoke of the corrupt mullahs... Posted by DaveH at March 18, 2008 10:39 AM
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