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Spicing up the books bazaar
With a copy of John Freely’s Istanbul: The Imperial City on his desk nearly finished, Juma Al Qubaisi is trying to squeeze in as much quality reading as possible.
The director of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair is busy organising the fair, due to start on March 17. “The Book Fair is not just a bazaar for books. We are trying to create a publishing infrastructure and encourage private publishers to establish themselves here,” he says.
Across UAE, there are over 100 government-backed publishers — like the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage and the Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation — but the private houses reflect the industry trends better and bring out the best titles in the market.
Al Qubaisi is concerned about the quality of the sector. The selection of English language books are slightly better, he feels, but the Arabic titles are either old ones, printed and reprinted hundreds of times, or religious and cooking books. “Nothing wrong with them, but we also need new titles.”
A few days ago, he visited a new Japanese bookshop that’s opened in Dubai Mall and was very impressed. “It had great titles selection and variety, and it looked really professional — that is exactly what we need.”
Around 135,000 people use the National Library in Abu Dhabi — of which he’s director too — every year, which proves there is a readership in the region. The real culprit, he says, is distribution. “We are now working to create our own system, which will be in place in about two years’ time.” Other plans to revive the sector include a book club, where a group of people read the same book and then comment on it.
In the meantime, starting several days before the Abu Dhabi Book Fair will be the very popular ‘Passing Book’ project, launched at the Fair last year. The project involves reading one novel, than passing it on to a friend or a stranger, while leaving comments about the book on a dedicated website.
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