Impressions of the Sharjah International Book Fair on a weekday

Sharjah - The fair is teeming with interesting characters, publishers, visitors, the behind-the-scenes support staff, and writers, too.

How many selfies do people take with Ironman, I ask one of the three women manning the giant installation of the Marvel comics superhero in his red costume at the entrance of Sharjah International Book Fair. "Five hundred to a thousand every day", she says. Her job is to sit on a chair and guard ironman, and to not let selfie-takers get too close to the plastic limbs of the superhero. It's an interesting sight - three women, three head scarves, one giant comic cult figure. They are the body guards of Ironman from 9 am to 10 pm. And Ironman is stood there to lure visitors to comic cave in Hall 1.
The superhero's red costume apart, orange is the dominant colour at the fair. The carpets, the lanyards, the logos, flags, hoardings, the executive diaries. It's difficult to forget where you are as one aspect at least that is evidently a success is the branding.
Tintin turns in his grave
The fair itself is teeming with interesting characters, publishers, visitors, the behind-the-scenes support staff, and writers, too. Some overheard conversations of books browsers are delightful. One lady at Sharjah University Bookshop wants to know if there are any "new Tintins" - an incredible request, given there haven't been any "new Tintins" since 'Tintin and the Picaros' in 1976, a few years before the death of the writer-illustrator Herge/ Georges Remi. The university bookshop price of Tintins though, at AED 30 a title, isn't unreasonable, compared to the outside world (that doesn't include India).
In chats with exhibitors from Syria and Egypt, the US and Lebanon, it seems that at the ten day long fair, there is a lot of time to fritter away. "The mornings are so slow, my dear," a Syrian woman named Manolia Idilbi of the Dar Al Rifai for Publishing and Distribution, tells me. "Today no one has come." She's Syrian, her name means the flowers Magnolia, but the 'g' is silent. She works at an Egyptian publishing house. Her family moved to Egypt. And she moved to the UAE, a safer alternative, and now lives in Sharjah and speaks a little French. They sell children's books, and hardbound copies of the Quran, bound in leather and with gold lettering.
The eagerness of exhibitors to talk is noticeable, especially the ones who have stalls right at the back, in the unpopular, lesser frequented zones.
Slow weekday pace
"The last two days have been terrible, we are not satisfied," says Amer Al Ansari of Al Dar Namozagieh, a Lebanese publishing house. "We've been coming to the Sharjah book fair for .since the eighties, no previous year has been this slow for business."
It is the first time at the book fair for a bookseller, Wordsworth, that divides time between Algeria and the UK selling English classics. Laurence Sterne, Darwin, Cicero, Jane Austen, Walt Whitman are sold for between AED 15 and AED 30. With every five books you buy, you get a sixth free, any one classic. These are good prices compared to retail, and much the point of a book fair. How is business though, how is it going, I ask her. She lowers her tone and says, "you know, it's boring". Then she checks herself: "There's a lot of activities, and many school children, yes, but can you believe people are coming here to eat! To eat!" She wants to know, "Why is it that mostly only Indians come to buy classics?". Her other pertinent question: "How can you have a book fair without Penguin Random House present? They are the biggest name!"
There's no dearth of good deals at the fairs. At one of the several Indian publishers, Amar Chitra Katha has a 25 % off on the whole set. A salesperson at a UAE stalls says, the romance novels are doing very well. The most popular at their stall, she says are the Gayle Forman books, especially her 'Just One Day' and the 'Just One Year' titles. 'The Forty Rules of Love' by Elif Shafak, she says, is another one flying off their shelves.
Tarikh Ali, a Scott, with origins in Pakistan tirelessly demonstrates an Arabic Learning tool to all those who stop by, curious. The learning aid he says costs AED 200. He says, people wearing Rolex watches and carrying Mont Blanc pens show an interest, but don't buy the kit saying, "too expensive." In a different context - about language, the infiltration of English and social media, and about families not insisting on kids sticking to their mother tongue, he says: "Give it two generations, he says. Arabic is going to die out".
For the moment though, and two stalls away from him, an Arabic calligrapher is drawing a crowd. People are keenly watching him slowly but expertly execute a few nastaliq letters on paper that looks like parchment.
A 'book developer' with Galaxy Press, Michael Metzler has time to saunter from Hall 5 to Hall 1 to meet a friend of his, Samer al-Kadri, from a Damascus-based publishing house called Bright Fingers. Samer isn't there this time. And Michael knows Samer from having frequently met him at other book fairs around the world, including the Frankfurt one, "that is attended by anybody whose anybody in the book business."
At the stall of Bright Fingers, there are beautiful panels of art done by, Gulnar Hajo (Samer's wife). It's no surprise that Gulnar won the Etisalat award for Arabic Children's Literature in 2015 for best illustration.
How does the Sharjah book fair compare with the Frankfurt one, I ask Michael Metzler. It's not a fair comparison, he says. He does say that business is very good at Sharjah, which is why they've kept coming back in the last couple of years. But in Frankfurt, there's very littlemilling about, he says. "It's all business to business un Frankfurt, with meetings packed in those 4 days." . Evidently none of this candy-store like selling of a few copies here and there, and plenty of downtime to chat.
Not everyone has that luxury though, least of all the invisible-ised service staff. In the media centre, for instance, where journalists can gather, drink tea, nibble on dried apricots and croissants, and file their reports on laptops provided by the organisers, there is a dedicated team of uniformed F & B staff, predictably from the Philippines, India, or Bangladesh, pressing the coffee machine buttons, proffering a saucer, getting you juice, pushing the bowl of sliced lemons and mint leaves nearer to your reach. They have long hours on their feet. It's a telling remark when one of them, with nationality a dead give away, says, "nobody appreciates, ma'am."
A taxi driver in Sharjah gives me his opinion. This year is not great for business at the Sharjah book fair, her says. Why, I ask him, and he tells me to look around, how many people do I see waiting in line to get a cab at the expo centre. But that doesn't mean anything. It could be just a slow hour on a weekday evening. Last year, he says, weekday or weekend, and well past midnight, there used to be a crowd waiting for a cab to take them back home, or to their hotels. "Iss saal itna zabardast nahin hai", he says - not so great this year.
I don't contradict him to his face. I don't tell him about the crowds near the Ironman installation. For one, I have trouble translating the concept of 'Ironman installation' to Urdu.
nivriti@khaleejtimes.com

• Sharjah International Book Fair