By Yasmina Jraissati
As a literary agent specialized in representing Arabic literature for world translation rights, I am often asked how visible Arabic literature is on the international scene. This question most of the time translates into: “how many copies do books translated from the Arabic sell?”
Last time I checked, Salwa El Naimi’s novel Burhan el aassal (Proof of the honey) sold 80,000 copies in Italy*. This record-breaking figure is rarely heard of for Arabic literature in translation. Sales numbers commonly range from 500 to 2,000 copies in markets like France, despite the fact that French readers are historically well inclined towards this literature. Comparatively, in 2009, the 30th ranked best seller sold 201,000 copies** in France.
Yasmina Jraissati of the RAYA Literary Agency specializes in Arabic literature
The number of copies sold is, however, not the only indicator of Arabic literature’s visibility. Considerations should also include the number or Arabic titles acquired, the number of houses that acquire them, and the number of countries in which they are acquired. In France, in 2009, translated literature represented 14.3% of the production. Most translated languages are: English (62%), followed by Japanese (8.3%), German (6.2%), Italian (4.3%), Spanish (4.0%), Scandinavian languages (1.8%), Russian (1.3%) and Dutch (0.9%, equivalent to 83 titles)**. In comparison, the number of Arabic titles translated per year can generously be estimated to a maximum of 20. Moreover, translations into French are mostly due to a single specialized house: Sindbad, currently directed by Farouk Mardambey, publishes approximately 10 titles a year.
Italy is today undoubtedly the most receptive market, with a growing number of houses acquiring rights to Arabic literature (at least five houses, small and large, have each acquired at least one Arabic title in the year 2008-2009*).
Surprisingly, given their geographic and cultural distance, Dutch and Scandinavian publishers are among the most attentive, especially if one compares them to culturally closer Spain, where good translators from the Arabic seem to be cruelly lacking. This tendency can however be explained by the fact that 34%*** of the Dutch production consists in translations.
In Germany, the activity continues although at a much slower pace, not to mention that the German market is characterized by a number of very small houses dedicated to Arabic literature, though unfortunately often ill-distributed.
Finally, the Anglo-American market remains the most difficult one to penetrate. English editions cover the entire Commonwealth. They are the most sought after and competition is tough; especially considering that only 3 to 4%*** of the English language production consists of translations. In each of the countries mentioned above, publishers willing to receive a reading copy of an Arabic novel amounts to an average of five, in the UK and US markets, interlocutors are even more rare.
We could conclude from the above data that Arabic literature is present on the main territories, but its presence is faint. Given the importance of the Arabic language in the world (320 million estimated speakers), the fact that this literature is still considered as marginal is unsettling. International publishers may be curious about this literature, but they rarely go as far as acquiring rights. This makes you wonder whether it is the quality of the Arabic literature that is at stake, or if there are external reasons to its marginalization.
One should bear in mind that ultimately, the presence of Arabic literature on the international scene depends on a single editor or two. And when each editor’s desk is flooded with books coming from all around the world, how can an Arabic book be set apart?
Publishers usually do not know, let alone master, the Arabic language, and they need external readers to get an approximate idea of a book’s content. Often, they do not have readers of Arabic with whom they regularly work. In this case, they will need to find them, learn to trust their taste, and give them the time to know their editorial lines.
Finally, the Arab market is completely opaque and publishers have little means to evaluate a book: Who is the author and what is the importance of an author in the Arab cultural landscape? What is the extent of his impact on the local press? How many copies has a book sold in its market of origin? How does it compare to other sales? How original or literary is its content and language compared to other books?
Hence, an international publisher ready to consider a particular Arabic title for translation is, most of the time, a publisher who wants to diversify his catalogue by adding Arabic Literature to it. Although this openness should be applauded as much as it creates new opportunities for Arabic literature, it results in a double-edged dynamic.
The Arab world is both familiar and unknown to the international editorial scene. Compared to other regions in the West, the Arab world is known through past colonial ties, intense media coverage and immigrated populations — or by One Thousand and One Arabian Nights.
Otherwise knowledgeable editors and readers have deeply rooted preconceptions that shape their expectations. On one hand, one wants to be astonished by a literature removed from easy clichés; on the other, one tends to be reassured by the confirmation of his or her prejudices. Arabs are, mostly in Europe, too well known to be surprising, and, when they do surprise, it is rarely as one might have wished they would.
Conversely, the local Arab scene is extremely sensitive to the international visibility of its authors. In Lebanon, readers measure an author’s quality by the number of contracts he has signed abroad. The more a book is translated, the more the volume of its sales grow in its country of origin. This mirror game takes unexpected turns as numerous Arab authors, hungry for acknowledgment, have chosen to address the international market directly, often offering a literature tailored to satisfy Western publishers’ appetites. In doing so, they give some reality to what originally was only an Orientalist fantasy.
Hence, except some determining external factors that are not impossible, though difficult, to overcome, the question of the degree at which Arabic literature is visible unavoidably brings us back to our local production, to the means devised to make it known and exist, as well as their impact on its quality. The absence of information in the Arab world prevents the establishment of quality standards, and our narcissism results in our literature being measured according to criteria that are essentially alien.
Is Arabic literature visible in the world? Sure. The question is rather what, exactly, is seen.
* Personnal communication
** Ministry of Culture and Communication, Reading and Book Services. 2010. Economie du livre : le secteur du livre : chiffres-clés 2008-2009, Paris
*** Heilbron, Johan. 2010. Structure and Dynamics of the World System of Translation, UNESCO, International Symposium ‘Translation and Cultural Mediation’, February 22-23, 2010, Paris.
DISCUSS: Have Western Publishers Been Too Slow to React to Political Change in the Middle East?
7 Comments
Yes, it is rather sad isn’t it? I think also because of this lack of International vaccum for Arabic literature, it also discourages youth and bright minds in the Arab world from creating new content, as they feel there isn’t really a way for them to get their content out anyways. Sad.
Perhaps also, Arab authors should try to first penetrate semi-Arab markets like those in South Asia, and gradually work there way towards penetrating bigger markets like the US.
Dear Yasmina,
I believe that the main reason why the Arab literature is invisible in foreign markets is the fact that the Arabs aren’t viewed favorably by other societies, the western ones in particular. Let’s be frank and honest, and I can blame the Arabs only. Just see how the Arabs are depicted in Western movies. Who wants to read books written by “those camel- riders”, who simply have got nothing to give the world excepts barrels of oil which provide the Arab despotic rulers with milliard of dollars which they spend on their own physical gratification and earthly pleasures while their peoples lin in sheer poverty. It’s our own doing and once we change ourselves we can’t make the world respect us and respect our culture and language. Besides, the Arab authors are simply trying to please their leaders because they want to make a living and once a writer sells his soul to his leader he can’t be universal. In contrast, those authors, like me, who wants to make a difference and change things have to swim against the current and consequently find no agent or publisher who’s raedy to represent or publish a serious novel or book that deals with serious matters and tackles very serious matters. They want to be on the safe side, and to earn money by publishing trivial books. Let’s take me as an example. I wrote a novel 5 years ago and ever since I have been trying to find a sponsor, an agent or a publisher to get it publish but to no avail. The novel is origionally written in English and though I write in Arabic, Hebrew and English, I wrote it in English because I want the world to know how the Israeli-Arab conflict affects the lives of ordinary people. I think you better understand what I’m talking about if I tell you somethig about myself. I’m a Palestinian writer and poet a member of the Palestinian minority living under the Isreli rule since 1948. So you can imagine how difficult and almost impossible my mission is. Neither the Israeli publishers nor the Arab ones want to take the risk and publish my novel because it’s so serious and it might not sell, but I don’t think so. Serious books must sell but as for me that doesn’t concern me . I just want the world to read my novel and it’s worth reading and it can be a best sellor too but it needs a brave heart.
When you say Arabic lit, do you mean lit that includes Farsi? If so, we published two editions of poetry by an Iranian poet, Sheema Kalbasi, the titles were received luke warmly here in the U.S. but had quite a response abroad. I think we need to update ourselves in proper cultural literacy before we pass judgement.
I lived in the Arab world for 17 years and I am a convert to Islam. Today I teach writing in a California college. Sadly, the Arab world reads hardly at all. Only those who are multi lingual read what those of us who adore books would qualify as “widely.” I have written on this topic yesterday:
http://grassrootswritersguild.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/book-publishing-around-the-world/
To Ossama: It would be fair to also ask how Westerners are depicted/thought of/treated in the Muslim World. From my twenties, living in Arabia, I found myself marginalized or flat out ignored–not by everyone, no, but by a lot of people including relatives. As one Saudi niece, whom I grew to love dearly (and who was was denied the the right to talk to me after I left), said after getting to know me better–12 years into my stay in Jeddah, “I never knew Westerners were so nice until I became friends with you.”
I am commenting through the lens of being an into-English translator of Arabic, both doing technical and literary discourse equally. It is very safe to say that the need for translations of chemical engineering reports and wire-tap transcripts far outweigh the need in North America for a Syrian novel or a Tunisian drama. Furthering that, the need for translation from English into Arabic far outweighs the need for translation from Arabic into English. Furthering that still, the number of native-English speaking translators of Arabic are so few in number at best that the quality of an English translation always comes into question — it’s one thing to be able to write well in a foreign language, it’s another to write well enough to produce an Erma Bombeck or an Edgar Allen Poe.
The problem comes in is that you have a lack of translators, twenty-two Arabic-speaking countries to cover, umpteen dialects through which authors and poets now are daring to use, and a general Western pigheadedness that is interested in the Arab world through politics and military perspectives only — thus overshadowing and undermining literature. Society on the Canadian/American side of the pond only want to know if they’re going to be bombed next, a Yemeni AlQaeda camp is of value to their knowledge, not a Yemeni poet. That noted, Canadian and American readers struggle enough trying to publish local Canadian and American authors, anything foreign (or Quebecois) is just seen as competition or… seen as another thing they’de rather watch on television than pick up and read.
It’s not easy going. I’m from Vancouver — I translate between English and Arabic, yet I have to technical write to make a living. Go figure~