By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

‘Understanding, Tolerance and Awareness’

One of the most widely anticipated sessions of next week’s Publisher’s Forum conference in Berlin (April 28 and 29) is the late-day commentary on Thursday from Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi of Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates.

Her “fireplace talk” with conference director Rüdiger Wischenbart is titled Publishing in the Arab World: Opportunities and Challenges, Encounters and Controversies. (Wischenbart tells us that #PF16 will post a video of the conversation after the event.) And the range implied in that title is no accident: Bodour, as she’s known, has seized one of the most daunting tasks in contemporary world publishing: “Arabic books are still among the least translated books in the world,” she says in an interview for Publishing Perspectives.

“The promotion of reading, literacy and a passion for books is something that runs in Sharjah’s blood.”Bodour Al Qasimi

Both in written answers to questions for this interview and in an hour-long conversation in the UK during the London Book Fair, the two-fold nature of her challenge is clear.

• Much more Arabic material needs to reach the international market in translation, and
• The publishing traditions of the Arab world are encountering rigorous new demands of quality and execution.

Here’s an irony: As a member of the International Publishers Association (IPA) Executive Committee, and the founding patron of the Emirates Publishers Association, Bodour might be thought to have the steepest challenge, resolutely struggling to engage and coordinate the valuable but disparate creative idioms that power her world.

But think again. When she spoke in London on April 10 at the IPA’s 31st Congress, Bodour proved to be among the most forward-leaning presenters of the day. She challenged the IPA to look well beyond the world of business to the part of the equation that so many in the business still aren’t addressing: the consumer. Bodour, it turns out, is on a mission to define not only the future-book but the future-reader, as well. And she called on the IPA to join her, saying to the assembly in London:

“If we’ve learned any lessons since the start of this revolution, it is that we have to be ahead of the curve, we have to be a step ahead, it’s a must and not a luxury. What kind of readers are we going to have in 2030 or 2040? I’d like to know that.

“I’d like to suggest that we commission a report on what the future trends of reading are. How will we consume books? Once we have that data, we can convene and create the best strategy for our industry, for what’s coming ahead.”

Before leaving London, Bodour had also demonstrated her entrepreneurial savvy: She and London’s Quarto Group chief Marcus Leaver announced the formation of “Kalimat Quarto,” a new partnership imprint that in 2017 will begin to distribute jointly produced titles in the Middle East and North Africa.

And to spend time with Bodour is to understand that a great deal of the progress she’s making is enabled by the warmth of her personality. This is a business person who articulates her vision with cordial, matter-of-fact logic. She speaks without hyperbole and has an essential grasp of what defines the needs of the artists she works with in her own publishing house and elsewhere.

For example, in an era in which even our independent authors are continually urged to find and engage the best editing support they can for their work, the tradition in Arabic literature is for “the author to do all the editing,” Bodour says.

“And this is where the problem comes. There’s one agent working in the Arab world, the RAYA Agency’s Yasmina Jraissati based in Paris. And she says that as an agent, one of the problems she finds is that the work comes fresh off the author’s laptop. That causes a lot of problems when you’re selling rights.”

And yet this has been the tradition for so long, Bodour says, that many readers in the Arab world simply accept it, reading books not only with the inevitable typos but also without the benefit of developmental or structural editing, considered fundamental to literary success in the West, of course.

“We have to be a step ahead, it’s a must and not a luxury. What kind of readers are we going to have in 2030 or 2040?”Bodour Al Qasimi

At her own publishing house, Kalimat, Bodour employs four editors who must constantly try to explain to authors and other publishers that the work must be edited. For that reason, agents — a largely unknown player in Arabic publishing —would be a huge boon to her growing industry, Bodour says, because, like Jraissati in Paris, they’d guide and require the kind of proper preparation of text that prize programs in the Arabic world are calling for, as well.

This is the sort of candor that Bodour brings to her exchanges. She seems unafraid of facing what’s needed, undaunted in looking for how to address those needs.

Here’s a series of questions in which some of the key elements of her singular understanding of her own world and its deepening interactions with the rest of publishing come across readily.

Publishing Perspectives: Having founded the Kalimat Group, you started by creating the Arabic world’s first dedicated children’s imprint (Kalimat, established in 2007), followed by a digital-educational imprint (Horouf, 2013), and then a third imprint that includes work for both adolescents and adults (Rewayat, 2015). Kalimat alone, we’re told, has 18 team members and more than 175 titles by 34 authors working with 63 illustrators. Clearly you’re deeply invested in each stage of development. Is this particular direction — children’s to adult — significant in itself?

Bodour: The transition from children’s literature into genres for older readers was something that was a natural and organic progression for Kalimat Group. I wouldn’t say that our move from the children’s canon into that of young adults and adults was a case of our “growing up,” but I would say that it came about as a result of our growing confidence – both in our stature and our ability to produce titles of the highest standard.

Our starting base was one of expertise in children’s literature and once we had established ourselves as a leading publisher in that canon, we developed the confidence to expand into new directions. There was certainly a degree of altruism behind the move as it was in part influenced by a desire to tackle the high levels of adult illiteracy in the Arab world.

A 2009 report by ALECSO, the Arab League’s Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation, revealed an overall illiteracy rate of 35.6 percent in the Arab world compared with a global rate of 18 percent.

Recent studies have also indicated that the average Arab citizen reads approximately just four pages per year.

We wanted to support the literacy initiatives from the UAE government that encourage adult citizens to read by producing titles that would celebrate Arab culture and give readers a sense of national identity.

Sharjah is the home to the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF), which The Bookseller named as one of the top four books fairs globally. SIBF encourages reading by making quality books accessible to everyone at affordable prices. Through Kalimat, Horouf and Rewayat, Kalimat Group aims to be a major part in these initiatives by reaching out to all segments of society and instilling in UAE citizens a passion for reading.

Publishing Perspectives: The Horouf work, in particular, demonstrates your leadership in educational publishing not just in the region but also in the crucial digital arena. (Note that at Wischenbart’s Publishers’ Forum, an important keynote address will be given by Cengage Learning’s Michael E. Hansen.) Was your company able to embrace digital elements of publishing more quickly than most?

Bodour: Kalimat Group was founded on the principle that it would be forward-looking with its offerings to enhance the reading environment in the UAE.

I’d say that it certainly helped that we established the organization at a time when the digital revolution was reaching its peak, and the prevailing zeitgeist of this period was imbuing us with a spirit of digital innovation and optimism. We were also fully aware that we needed to innovate to survive, with the publishing landscape obviously starting to change rapidly.

Our aim is to always stay ahead of the curve.

Our first foray into the digital sphere came as an educational initiative in the form of an integrated Arabic language system that utilizes smart technology to enhance children’s learning in Arabic. Developed by Horouf Educational Publishing, a subsidiary of Kalimat Group, this first-of-its-kind initiative aims to support learning in Arabic by leveraging the latest technologies in combination with purposely designed contemporary educational syllabuses.

The system provides stimulating educational programs that have been designed to promote analytic thinking to enable students to access the required information and use it effectively – a vital skill in the information age. It’s been a huge success so far and we’re looking to extend the initiative to senior schools and other educational establishments in the emirate.

Publishing Perspectives: Have you found the juxtapositions of more traditional and digital publishing jarring in your market in the UAE?

Bodour: Although the country has advanced ICT infrastructure and high Internet and mobile penetration, digital publishing is not capitalizing on this landscape nearly enough. Digital content or ebooks share only 1 percent of the Arabic book readership. Kalimat Group has printed more than 100 titles in the last few years, with almost all of them having digital versions. But only one copy in every 100 sold is a digital version. I don’t believe we’re experiencing any jarring between the two formats, it’s just that the demand isn’t there at the moment. We anticipate that this will change.

The integrated Arabic language educational system that employs smart technologies to enhance children’s learning in Arabic is now a major tool in Sharjah’s classrooms. As more and more pupils become comfortable with it and proficient in its use, we anticipate that they will be drawn to digital titles for their leisure reading. We hope this will then see them bringing the format with them into adulthood.

With the aim of both anticipating and stimulating this demand, the Sharjah Book Authority, in association with Kalimat Group, has launched Baba Zayed [based on the UAE’s founder, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan], the world’s first Virtual Reality book. Available in Arabic and English, Baba Zayed works by encouraging children to engage with the events depicted in it and to be influenced by its characters directly by wearing of VR glasses. Its 360-degree interaction aims to recapture youngsters’ joy for books through the adoption of a new, exciting format.

Publishing Perspectives: Your work in founding the Emirates Publishers Association, of course, has been a key to the UAE’s rising presence in world publishing — as is your position on the ExCom of the IPA. Can you give us a sense for the publishing landscape in the Arab markets? 

Bodour: The Emirates Publishers Association has been the driving force behind the rise of the UAE’s publishing industry over the past seven years. Established in February 2009, EPA’s aim is to develop the UAE’s publishing industry by representing the country’s publishers at regional and international events, exhibitions and seminars relating to the industry. The Association also functions to disseminate the UAE’s intellectual output across the Arab world and internationally.

The EPA enhances the publishing industry in the UAE by training and supporting UAE publishers and by improving publishing-related laws and regulations. The region’s publishing landscape is not defined in the same manner as the “Big Five” in the US and “Big Four” in the UK — EPA represents numerous smaller publishing houses. It works to provide its members with key services through cooperation with local printing and distribution houses, its focus on translations from and into Arabic, and its promotion of protection of intellectual property rights and related issues.

Publishing Perspectives: One of the things we’re most interested in is rights issues, and I wonder if you find particular points of rights negotiations either especially difficult or especially facile for Arab work?

“Although the UAE has advanced ICT infrastructure and high Internet and mobile penetration, digital publishing is not capitalizing on this landscape nearly enough. Digital content or ebooks share only 1 percent of the Arabic book readership.”Bodour Al Qasimi

Bodour: With regards to rights issues, this is an extremely important area that the Emirates Publishers Association addressed during the Arab Publishers Conference in November last year. In fact, it was the first topic on the agenda at the two-day forum.

Among its key recommendations were:

• The preparation of pilot model contracts between authors and publishers to ensure the protection of the rights and interests of both parties;
• The duration of copyright protection to be extended to the author’s lifetime and minimum of 70 years after death;
• The need to improve awareness about intellectual property rights and to promote the culture of copyright among youth and the importance of working with legislators to increase punishments for violators of copyright.

Among the other issues tackled over eight sessions: Protecting Intellectual Property in the Digital Age; Fighting Piracy; Publishing and Translation in the Arab World; A look at Tomorrow’s Library; “Freedom of Expression = Freedom to Publish”; Challenges and Opportunities in Educational Publishing; Distribution in the Digital Age and The Quest for Innovative and Engaging Content.

Publishing Perspectives: What are some of the challenges of literacy and publishing in your market?

Bodour: A significant challenge we face is a lack of alternate-language versions for Arabic titles. Despite the launch of several initiatives, grants, and awards that support the translation of books from Arabic into other languages, Arabic books are still among the least translated books in the world.

This is because of many reasons, but primarily the lack of agents in the Arab world working on the promotion of Arab publications around the world, as is the case in Europe, America, and Asia.

For the domestic market, we’d like to see more Arabic titles offered in an array of languages to reflect the dynamic multicultural environment that is the UAE. The country is home to millions of resident workers from across the world and providing Arabic titles in their mother tongue is something that can only increase understanding, tolerance and awareness of each other’s lives.

“The region’s publishing landscape is not defined in the same manner as the “Big Five” in the US and “Big Four” in the UK — Emirates Publishers Association represents numerous smaller publishing houses.”Bodour Al Qasimi

Publishing Perspectives: Are there any concerns about perceived gender imbalance in available reading material for boys and girls, as there are in some other markets at the moment?

Bodour: With respect to gender imbalance, we have a strongly inclusive educational sector and there is no discernible difference with regards to gender imbalance with literacy. Primary, secondary and tertiary education is encouraged for all.

Publishing Perspectives: It’s impossible not to notice on social media that there’s so much appreciation for your work. And at the launch in London of Sultan Bin Muhammad Al Qasimi’s book, Under the Flag of Occupation (Bloomsbury, 2015), there were many industry players glad to have a chance to speak with you. Has reading been a lifelong interest for you? Are there key influences — family life, educational settings — that propelled you toward this career?

Bodour: I grew up in a family that loves books and reading. My father has been a tireless supporter of literacy, reading and the preservation of culture in the emirate and I have inherited his passion for the written word having seen the difference it can make in people’s lives.

The promotion of reading, literacy and a passion for books is something that runs in Sharjah’s blood and I am honored to be part in continuing this noble and most worthy of traditions.

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The 2016 edition of Rüdiger Wischenbart’s Global Ebook Report is just out, and he’ll be making a presentation of it at Publishers’ Forum on April 29. There’s more about the Global Ebook Report here. And follow hashtag #PF16 on Twitter for live coverage from Publishers’ Forum.

If you can be in New York City on June 13, join us for a special Publishing Perspectives conference, Rights and Content in the Digital Age.