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01 www.adbookair.com | Wednesday to Monday 09:00 - 22:00 | Friday 16:00 - 22 :00

© Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2013

23rd Abu Dhabi International Book Fair

24 - 29 March 2013

UAE Vice President, Prime Minister andRuler o Dubai His Highness Sheikh

Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoumat the 23rd Abu Dhabi InternationalBook Fair (ADIBF) on Friday April 26

showdailyN04

“I had a good time today touring the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. It was very well-organized with a

large variety o books” - HH Sheikh Mohammed via Ofcial Twitter : @HHShkMohd



02 www.adbookfair.com

N04

Editor:Edward Nawotka

Deputy Editor:Irum Fawad

Design Manager:Nada Baroudy

Bylined articles do not

necessarily reect the

views of the editors.

© Abu Dhabi International Book Fair

2013–

All rights reserved.

Duplication, either in whole or in part,

permissible only with the prior written

consent o the Abu Dhabi International

Book Fair.

MASTHEAD

Is a DigitalBook asDevout asa PhysicalCopy?by Roger Tagholm

Walking the aisles in the air-conditioned

splendor o the Abu Dhabi International

Book Fair this week, the physicality o

Islamic holy books is impossible to ignore.

Lavishly decorated Holy Qu’arans, religious

texts or works by Arab poets o old glint

at you rom almost every corner, their

intricate, tooled covers catching the light.

There’s enough gold lea on display here to

pay o the UK’s national debt.

This year, Beirut-based Dar Al-Baroudi,

which specializes in high-quality,

traditional leather-bound books, has even

brought its gold-blocking machine withit, so air-goers can see beautiul books

being made, as i they are in an ancient

workshop. It’s strange to look at its giant

lever pointing towards the heavens and

realize that this was once new technology.

One o the paradoxes o the Arab world is

that people will tell you there is no culture

o reading, yet at the same time there is

clearly huge respect or its religious and

poetic heritage, as evidenced by the many

beautiul editions on display.

Holding a beautiul, $350 edition o

Arabia’s most amous poet Al-Mutanabbi,

Dar Al-Baroudi’s MD Mohammed Omeirt

said: “You cannot do this with digital. This

is art. You want to see. You want to touch.”

The devout o all aiths adore their books.

They carry them to services, mark their most cherished passages and pass them

on to the next generation. Can the same

ever be said or a digital edition?

The beauty o Islamic print books isunsurpassed

Beneath the

‘Tree o Bliss’by Roger Tagholm

She calls it ‘the tree o bliss’ or ‘the tree

o blessings,’ and its ‘oliage’ is one

o the more striking sights in the hall.

Coloured cards bearing messages like

‘Give away whatever it is you want to get’

or ‘Strangers are riends we haven’t met

yet’ gently sway, while beneath them, their

author, Dr Reem El-Mutwalli, organises a

team o university student volunteers who

are giving away balloons and iers or

her unusual book, called simply Sadaqah

(‘philanthropy’).The book contains 600-odd instructions,

exhortations and encouragements to be

kind, ranging rom ‘Bring owers to an

unmarked grave’ to ‘Let someone merge

during trafc hour.’ The accumulative

eect is touching and has echoes o the

sort o projects Workman produces in the

US and Catherine Ryan Howard’s novel

(and flm) Pay it Forward.

An Iraqi academic, now living in Abu

Dhabi, El-Mutwalli sel-published the title

“as a way o giving something back.” Her

frst three books – on architecture, art andcostume – were all published through the

Cultural Foundation and ADACH (the Abu

Dhabi Authority or Culture and Heritage),

but she wanted to do this one hersel, “to

practice what I preach.”

“We printed 2,000 beore Christmas and

they all sold and we’ve printed another

3,000,” she said, with skilul use being

made o social media to spread the word.

She also believes it has notched up a little

milestone in Arabic publishing. “As ar as

I know, it’s the frst title on philanthropy

published in the Arabic language.”

The authorities certainly seem pleasedwith the title. “The Abu Dhabi Educational

Council bought the book as an aid or

teachers and or school libraries,” said

El-Mutwalli, who adds: “What I’m hoping

to do with this book is change the way

people think a little. There are so many

things people can do, whether it’s buying

a stranger a cup o coee or raking leaves

in your neighbor’s back yard.”

Iraqi-bornEmirate’s author

encouragesreaders to be more

generous



www.adbookfair.com03


24 - 29 April 2013

Nobody knows

where it is, but

to me has always

been the most

magical, moving

and rickety place

in the universe

Italy’s Fulvio Ervasand Cristiano Cavina:Giving a Voice to Those Who Cannot Speak or Themselves

Writing or those who

do not have a voice:

this is the implied

message in the works

o Fulvio Ervas and

Cristiano Cavina, the

authors representing

contemporary Italian

literature at this year’s ADIBF

Fulvio Ervas, born in 1951, is the author o

Se ti abbraccio non avere paura (Marcos y

Marcos, 2012), which translates roughly to

I I Hug You, Don’t Be Araid, a bestseller

that has already been translated into seven

languages, including Chinese.

The book tells the true story o a

courageous ather (Franco) and his son

(Andrea, now 18 years old), autistic since

the age o three, who last year traveled

together by motorbike rom Miami to

Brazil, to show the world that it is possible

to enjoy lie despite autism. When this

incredible trip was turned into a book,

its success was unexpected: “This bookwas born out o a random encounter with

Franco and Andrea,” says Ervas. “The story

was tough to tell. And although ull o

energy, it was unlikely that it would appeal

to everyone’s taste.”

The book delivers a strong message:

“When lie knocks you down, you can

still do something important out o it,”

continues Ervas, “but it is up to you. Lie is

not all about the pain and the suering you

go through.”

Despite the challenges, autism never

discouraged Franco rom his trip and he

continues to battle authorities to secure

Andrea’s rights to receive adequate care

or his condition — a battle that has

become the cause o every amily with an

autistic child in Italy.

Novelist Cristiano Cavina says he writes in

order to save things rom being orgotten:

“I intend to give voice to who have never

had it. Like my illiterate grandparents,

my riends, and especially those in my

hometown o Casola, where people still

love to tell stories.”

Born in 1974 in the small village o Casola

Valsenio, in Emilia Romagna region, Cavina

is the author o six books written over the

last 10 years. Critically acclaimed and much

loved by readers, he won the prestigious

Premio Strega in 2009, as well as several

other prizes. Cavina still lives in Casola,

“the place o his dreams,” he says where

he still continues to works as a pizzaiolo

(a pizza maker). With just a ew thousand

inhabitants, the village is the perecttheatrical setting or Cavina’s stories:

“Nobody knows where it is, but to me has

always been the most magical, moving and

rickety place in the universe, ull o amazing

stories and one in a million characters.”

Fulvio Ervas and Cristiano Cavina

will sign books tomorrow at 17:00 at

the“Signatures” at the ADIBF.

by Chiara Comito




N04

Children’s Apps vs.Children’sBooksby M. Lynx Qualey

Neither Jordan’s Al-Salwa Publishing House

nor the UAE’s Kalimat, two o the strongest

Arabic children’s book publishers, have

made a proft o e-publishing.

Taghreed Najjar, ounder o Al-Salwa,

and Tamer Said, Business Development

Manager or Kalimat, gave a panel on

“Children’s Apps vs. Children’s Books” along

with Spanish publisher Eva Mejuto at the

E-zone this past Thursday.

“Thirty-our percent o our books are

available as digital,” Said said. “And [this

accounts or] zero percent o our income.”

That doesn’t mean Arabic apps and other digital content haven’t been popular with

children and their parents. Najjar began the

digital adventure in 2010 by making her frst

interactive CD, a companion to the book A

Home or Arnoub. This sold well, but Najjar

wanted to try creating apps in an eort to

lower the price or consumers and to make

interactive content more easily accessible.

Al-Salwa’s frst two apps were both

appreciated and received wide distribution,

she said.

“One o the apps we put on the Android

store or ree,” Najjar said. “The other one

we put on the Apple store. And the cost o the app on the Apple store was very cheap,

99 cents.”

The ree app on the Android store got over

50,000 downloads, Najjar said. However,

despite vigorous marketing, the 99-cent

one on the Apple store saw almost no

movement. Things changed when she got

the app mentioned on a popular blog,

where they oered it or ree or a single day.

“On this day, we got 15,000 downloads.”

The large number o downloads, Najjar

thought, should translate into a word-o-

mouth buzz. However, even though the

app was appreciated and well-reviewed, it

did not turn to Al-Salwa’s advantage in any

concrete way. “What we had was very good

reviews,” Najjar said. “And that gave us the

idea that we were on the track. As ar as

getting back the money that was invested by

us and our partners, we didn’t come close.”

Najjar, Said, and audience members

speculated about the reasons whyArabic apps were not yet selling. Zaidoun

Karadsheh, managing director o MediaPlus,

which helped produce digital content both

or al-Salwa and or Kalimat, said that Arab

consumers “still need time to [get used to]

using our credit card and paying online.”

However, Karadsheh added, “You’re leading

the market by digitizing your content, and

the market will ollow.”

Children’s AuthorMaitha al-Khayat SetsExampleor Other

Ambitious

Emiratisby M. Lynx Qualey

Maitha al-Khayat on how she ound

hersel as a writer.

When Emirati author Maitha al-Khayat

and her younger sister were growing

up in the UK, they oten ought over

Maitha’s reading habits. While still a

girl, Maitha lost interest in playing with

dolls and became engrossed in reading

fction. “This is when we always got into

fghts. I used to read even more than I

would study. And she used to catch me,

and tell on me.”Although Maitha’s younger sister never

developed a taste or books, she did

enjoy hearing Maitha read aloud. Years

later, Maitha’s sister became a teacher

and said: We’re sick o seeing your nose

in a book all the time. When will you start

writing?

“That was the sentence that changed my

whole lie,” Maitha said.

Maitha was delighted with the idea o

being an author, but wasn’t sure where

to begin. The idea o a book about an

errant nit was her sister’s. Maitha took

the idea, ran with it, and it became the

story The Runaway Louse.Maitha’s sister loved the results. Once

the oodgates had opened, Maitha

ound she had many more stories to tell.

Another book came soon ater, I Love My

Dad’s Long Beard. But although Maitha’ssister loved The Runaway Louse, she

didn’t think much o I Love My Dad’s

Long Beard.

“So there was a bet. I said, ‘Okay,

I’m going to send both o these to

publishers, and I’ll see which one they’ll

choose. And both publishers wanted, I

Love My Dad’s Long Beard.”

Ater that, Maitha published two other

books, “My Own Special Way” and

“When a Camel Craves Loquaimat.”

Then, when the UAEBBY and Goethe-

Institut contacted her about speaking

at their 2012 workshop, she saw a great

opportunity. She asked them, “Insteado being a speaker, can I be one o the

participants?”

Maitha said she was “araid it was onlyluck” that she’d published her frst

books, and wanted to know: “Am I truly a

children’s book author?”

Through the “Made in UAE” workshop,

Maitha was able to return to The

Runaway Louse, which was illustrated by

Abdullah al-Sharhan and published by

Jarrous Press. She also prepared a book

idea or this year’s workshop, although

because o scheduling issues she won’t

be able to participate.

Currently fnishing her bachelor’s, Maitha

eventually wants to get a Master’s in

creative writing. It’s not enough just

getting Emiratis to read, she said. Wealso need to get them writing. “I want to

be able to teach creative writing.”

“It’s not enough just getting

Emiratis to read.We also need to get

them writing.”

Profting romthe production

and marketing o digital content in Arabic remains

challenging





24 - 29 April 2013

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Collegedays:moreonAUB

relatedreads=

The AmericanUniversity ofBeirut

BettySAnderson

Sub-titled “ArabNationalism and LiberalEducation”, Anderson’sscholarly text isanotherhistory ofAUB, “[but] onlyone ofthe many storiesthat canbe told.”

That They MayHave Life

StephenBLPenroseJr

First published in1941to mark AUB’s75thanniversary, Penrose’sbook resurfaced inpaperback last year.The author notesinhisintroductionthat theuni hasa“penchant foranniversariesinthe midstof[world] war”.

Books about major US universi-ties are typically heavy coffee-tableaffairs, with colourful photos of grinning football players, hoary professors and hand-holding cou-ples, posed appealingly by campuslandmarks onglorious spring after-noons. AmericanSheikhs:TwoFami-lies, Four Generations, and the Storyo America’s Infuence in the Middle

East ,however,isnoneofthat.Instead, the US Naval Academy

historian Brian VanDeMark, whoseprevious memoir of the former USdefence secretary Robert McNama-ra, was a bestseller, has focused hisnew book on the American Univer-sity of Beirut (AUB), while pursuing amuchbroadergoal.

Specifically, VanDeMark makes AUBakindofstand-inforWashing-ton’s relationship with the MiddleEast: how the US got into the regionin the rst place and what it’s donethere since – both good and bad.“ThestoryofAUBisalsoametaphorfor something bigger and moreimportant,” VanDeMarek writes.“Enduring themes of Americanmission, American nationalism, America’s encounter with imperi-alistic politics, American idealismand American frustration as a great power in the region have all playedoutinvividanddramaticdetail.” AUBisthestoryoftwofamilies,the

Blisses and the Dodges, whose de-scendants controlled AUB for fourgenerations.It’sanunfamiliarstory, VanDeMarkadds,becauseitdoesn’t conformtotheprevailingnarrativesof“oil,Israelandsecurity”.

Indeed, the lack of focus on thosethemes is actually refreshing. With

American Sheikhs we learn how, asearly as 1866, the newly foundedSyrian Protestant College in Beirut offered the Arab world not just anexceptional faculty but something relatively new among the region’sinstitutions of higher learning: freeintellectual enquiry. “Its faculty didnot merely ll Arab students’ heads with facts,” VanDeMark writes of AUB. “It taught them how to organ-ise and interpret facts.” Character-

building and hard work were othermajor tenets expected of the col-lege’s all-male students who at-tended classes in an Islamic-styleproperty, built atop a headland onBeirut’s outskirts, with glorious viewsofStGeorge’sBay.

Just as AUB’s architecture hon-oured Arab tradition, so too didits educational philosophy, whichblended Islamic culture with mod-ernconceptsfromtheWest.

The students, their families, andlocalleadersadmiredthisapproachenough to rapidly fill AUB’s ranks.Mostly they admired its founder,the Rev Daniel Bliss, who’d cometo them from America. Bliss, who’dhadapoorupbringinginruralOhio, was a strait-laced Christian mis-sionary whose original official in-tent was to “civilise” the populacethrough compassionate Christianservice. But Bliss soon realisedthat proselytising Muslims was abad idea because it was antitheti-cal to Islamic culture. Converting Eastern Christians was equally ill-advised because those Christians– Maronists and Orthodox Greeks –already considered their Americanbrothersarrogant.

That impression was deserved:Protestant missionaries went abroad in those days ingrained with notions of their own superior-ity; and westerners’ impression of Arabs, gleaned from The Arabian Nights, was “as desert nomads who lived in an exotic and faraway world of sand dunes, camels andharems”. The term “Middle East”

wasn’t even popular until 1900; inBliss’s day, the region was simply “the Orient”.

Bliss meant to have an impact there. Having gained a handle onlocal language and customs, heset out to change Middle Easternsociety from within, by education,rather than from without, throughpolitics. “Evangelism should give way to education,” Bliss believed.

His ally in this project wasn’t somuch America’s missionary board, whichoversawhiswork,asawealthy American businessman (and reli-giousPuritan),WilliamDodge,whohelped Bliss beat the Jesuits – whoalso planned a college in Beirut –and get AUB up and running. Wordspreadthatthisnewcollegewasthebest in the Middle East, and power-

ful leaders from multiple nationsquicklyenrolledtheirsons.

By 1909, AUB had grown to 1,000students; Bliss’s middle sonHoward inherited the presidency and created a melting pot on cam-pusamidacitythathadgrownintoamajorcommercialandculturalcen-tre. Meanwhile, local Arabs had be-guntoforgeasenseofidentitysepa-rate from their Turkish and Frenchmasters; VanDeMark posits that AUB’s environment of free thought helped give birth to Arab national-ism.

That movement grew stronger af-ter the First World War, when Brit-ainand France notoriously splittheregion (with former Ottoman-con-trolled Lebanon and Syria going toFrance), andwhen Britain’sBalfourDeclaration pledged support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. TheParis Peace Conference swiftly dis-missed US President Woodrow Wil-

son’s call for self-determination intheregion.

Meanwhile, a different kind of challenge resulted from the ar-rival of modernity in the 1920s. But Bayard Dodge, who had marriedBliss’s daughter and become AUB’spresident in 1923, responded, ex-pandingtheuniversity’scurriculumin Arabic language and culture andmelding together Arab and Jewishstudentsinthedormsandonsportsteams. A young Palestinian student confessed that some of his best friends were Jews, but: “as soon as we get back to Jerusalem, I can’t al-lowmyselfto be seenspeaking withthem”. In 1924 AUB even admittedits first woman: she wore two veilsand attended class with her hus-bandintow.

Between 1920 and 1940, enrol-mentdoubledagain,to2,000;wom-en’s numbers also increased, andmenandwomenopenlysocialised.

ThencametheSecondWorldWar,introducing,forthersttime,achillbetweenArabsandtheWest.TheUShadbecomeanetimporterofoilforthe rst time and later eyed AUB asanassetintheColdWar. AlthoughTime magazine in 1948

said of Bayard Dodge that no other American had done as much to winand keep goodwill for the US in theNear East, those living in the region weren’t so sure. Things hardly im-proved when 14,000 US marineslanded in Lebanon in 1958, in re-sponse to a coup in Iraq, and whenTapline,a2,000kmSaudi-AmericanpipelinefromtheArabianGulf,wasbuilt in that decade right throughLebanon.

TheArab-Israeliwarof1967–withthe US supporting Israel – causedtensions to worsen further; AUB’s Jewish enrolment fell to zero. Newsweek sarcastically tagged AUB “Guerrilla U”: Where the cam-

pus formerly had supplied MiddleEastern countries with presidents,prime ministers, doctors and am-bassadors, now it was producing “hijackers and guerrillas”, themagazine said. Certainly, Arab stu-dents viewed AUB as “a symbol of imperialism and hypocrisy”, andsuch views frustrated Dodge, whofutilely tried to bring the campus’s“meltingpot”backtogether.Shortly beforehisdeathin1972,hesaid,“It istruerthaneverbeforethathistory is‘aracebetweeneducationandca-tastrophe’.”

His words predicted the subse-quent years, as the new disillusion-ment with secularism, together with surging Palestinian national-ism, pushed Lebanon’s MaronitePhalangist minority into a terror-ist act that initiated civil war. US-backed AUB became a bombing target of terrorists, and there wasmore: president David Dodge was

held captive by Hizbollah for a yearin 1982 and his successor, MalcolmKerr,wasassassinatedin1984.

US marines and soldiers took upresidence in Beirut – a terrorist bombingin1983killed241ofthem.ThencametherstGulfWarin1991followed by the September 11 at-tacks,andinturnbythe2006Israeliinvasion of Lebanon in retaliationforHizbollahrocketattacksagainst itscitizens.

The new generation of MiddleEastern students at AUB and newerinstitutions such as the AmericanUniversity of Kuwait, EducationCityinQatar,andtheAmericanUni- versity of Cairo “objected to many things in American policy”, an Arabeducator once remarked, “except for one thing: American-style edu-cation”.

So what is an American-styleeducation worth today? American

Sheikhscould have been a dry aca-demic tome, but VanDeMark’s vi-brant writing and in-depth report-ing make AUB’s story an allegory about what it takes to calm ethnicandreligioustensions.

“At AUB,” he writes, “Arabs and Jews and Americans and Muslimsbecame humanly familiar to eachother through dialogue and learnt tolerance, and therefore politically plausible partners to each other.”These components, VanDeMark adds, “are the most powerful andenduring antidotes to extremismof any kind” – words worth think-ingabouttooasmoreandmoreUS-linked institutions, from New York University-Abu Dhabi to the Ameri-can University of Sharjah, take root andowerintheUAEandacrosstheMiddleEast.

JoanOleckisareelancewriterbased inBrooklyn,NewYork.

A lesson

in tolerance

Frompage158Aterriblewindwasgatheringforce.AUBhadalwaysbeenaniconoftheUSintheMiddleEast.Nowthat iconhadbecomeatargetforthosewhohatedAmerica

Inhis vibrantlywrittennew book,Brian VanDeMarktakesanin-depthlookatthehistoryotheAmericanUniversityoBeirut andits complexandsometimestroubledrelationshipwith theregion, writesJoan Oleck

TheAmericanUniversityofBeirutwasestablishedasanalternativetoChristianevangelism,whichwasantitheticaltoIslamicculture.JosephBarrak/AFP

AmericanSheikhsBrian VanDeMark

Promotheus Books

Dh108

Don’t miss our weekly Review section

Established in 1987 in Beirut, Dar al Saqi is

Saqi Books in London’s sister company. Itreleases close to eighty new fction, non-

fction, and children’s titles a year.

It has built up a reputation o publishing

progressive works in Arabic and in translation,

with authors including poetry giants such

as Mahmoud Darwish and Adonis, and

controversial works (oten banned in the

Middle East) by writers rom the region

including Egyptian Nawal El Saadawi, Iranian

Shirin Ebadi, Palestinian-Israeli Sayed

Kashua, and Saudi Rajaa’ al-Saneh (Girls o

Riyadh). Dar al Saqi publishes western titles

such as Candice Bushnell’s Sex and the City,

Richard Dawkins’s The Selfsh Gene and

Brian Whitaker’s Unspeakable Love: Gay and

Lesbian Lie in the Middle East, and Hannah

Arendt’s On Violence.Rania Mouallem, Dar al Saqi’s editorial

manager commented on the Arab book

market, which is “very difcult now because

o the political and economic instability in

Arab countries. We’re not really sure where the

Arab readers are and what they want, but or

the past year novels have been selling better

than political books which could suggest

escapism.”

Mouallem said Abu Dhabi was an important

air or them in terms o sales, and that most

o her customers are Emirati women who

are strong Arabic readers, avoring romantic

novels, preerably written by Emirati and

Saudi authors, signaling a relatively new

phenomenon. Dar al Saqi consequently

looks or authors rom these areas. Mouallemgave the example o outspoken Saudi writer

Badriya al Bishr’s book entitled Love Stories

rom Al Asha street, which had an initial print

run o 3000 and sold out in one month. Dar

al Saqi, o course, reprinted. (Bishr was on

Forbes magazine’s 2013 list o the 100 most

powerul women in the world.)

Eighty percent o Dar al Saqi’s books are

published in Arabic, and twenty percent are

translated, a number o which come rom their

sister company, Saqi Books.

Even though it’s very expensive or Dar al

Saqi to buy rights, to pay or translation,

and keep the public price o the book the

same, “we know these translated books

have their readers,” said Mouallem. “Readers

ask or translated novels, so we continue totranslate…”

This year they will be translating Atiq Rahimi’s

The Patience Stone rom the French, as well

as the late Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451, “a

project we have had or many years.”

Dar al Saqi branched into children’s publishing

fve years ago and produces about 20 titles

a year, but Mouallem hints that they are still

fnding their way. They translated books

such as TimeRiders or young adults into

Arabic, but ound that the potential buyers

or these books were either Francophone or

Anglophone. They will be publishing a book

or adolescents written in Arabic this year, and

will ocus more on books or younger children.

Publisher Profle:

Dar Al Saqi,Beirut, Lebanon by Olivia Snaije

The Lebanese publishing house, Dar al Saqi, has been

present at the Abu Dhabi book air or 17 years. Since 2011 it

has had books on the long and shortlists or the IPAF prize;

this year its Saudi author, Mohammed Hasan Alwan’s novel,

The Beaver, was on the shortlist.




N04

Rachid Boudjedra:Subversive, Pugnacious, and Versatile

Born in colonial French Algeria in 1941, he

became a maquisard beore the age o

twenty in the Algerian resistance movement,

eventually representing the FLN (National

Liberation Front), working as an advisor

to the Ministry o Culture as well as being

secretary-general o the Algerian Human

Rights League.

Alternately described as subversive,

pugnacious, and versatile, “a Marxist in

a Muslim world,” Boudjedra has happily

criticized both Algerian and French societiesin his books and poetry over the years. He

frst began to write in French, and in 1981

switched over to writing in Arabic, eventually

writing in both and oten translating his work;

he is considered both a French and Arab

author, like Kateb Yacine and Assia Djebar.

“There is no dierence between writing in

Arabic or in French or me,” said Boudjedra.

“The writer imposes his vision and his

eelings about the world on the language

he is using. I already manhandled the

French language a little in 1970 and then I

manhandled the Arabic language beginning

in 1981. A writer always has his or her own

lexicon, which can disrupt set phrases and

traditional language. In this sense, a writer is

or is not subversive!”

Sparks ew right rom the start o Boudjedra’s literary career with the

publication o his frst novel, La Répudiation,

(The Repudiation) in 1969. Outspoken in his

views about what he saw as an intolerant,

archaic society, Boudjedra was embraced

by the literary world while his book was

banned in Algeria. Not only was he using

the “language o the enemy,” he was using

it to criticize Muslim traditionalism. For his

personal saety, Boudjedra lived in France

and Morocco or a time beore returning to

Algeria.

He experimented with dierent styles o

writing, rom the socio-realistic to ables, but

never shied away rom writing (in explicitlanguage) about sexuality, rape and incest

in Algerian society. Violence is a recurring

theme in his books, whether it is inicted by

the French on Algerian soil, violence among

Algerians, either cultural or political, and

racism and violence towards Algerians in

France.

Ater writing six novels in French, in 1981

Boudjedra turned to Arabic out o a desire

to “subvert the language,” he said in an

interview at the time. As soon as he began

writing in Arabic, Arabic language publishers

rushed to translate the novels he had written

in French.

“I translated most o my novels in both

directions, only a ew were translated by

riends and my frst novel, La Répudiation

was translated by my Arabic proessor romwhen I was in high school. This is something

wonderul that still moves me!” (Arabia

Books will publish Boudjedra’s The Barbary

Figs in English this all, and his novel The

Funerals in 2014.)

Algeria is ertile ground or Boudjedra,

who in his essays, poems and novels has

treated subjects such as the unsung role o

the Berbers in the conquest o Andalucía,

the unsatisactory outcome o the Algerianrevolution, bureaucracy during a Socialist

regime, his plea or democracy during the

period o Islamic terrorism, and the beauty

and magic o the Sahara desert. He has

also written screenplays or flms, one

o which won the Palme d’Or at the 1971

Cannes Film Festival. His writing has been

called “cinematographic,” but Boudjedra

said he wrote this way long beore writing

by Olivia Snaije

screenplays:

“I’ve always written in a cinematographic

and pictorial style, taking inspiration rom

great American writers and great European

painters: Faulkner and Dos Passos,

Picasso and de Staël. It’s a question o

personal culture…”

Although many young Algerian authors

now write in Arabic, Boudjedra continuesto write in both Arabic and French. When

asked whether Algerian writers would

continue the current trend o writing in

Arabic, or would go back to writing in

both languages, Boudjedra commented,

“In my opinion French has no uture or

North Arican writers because Arabic is all-

pervasive. For example, 6,000,000 Arabic

language newspapers are sold each day in

Algeria whereas Francophone newspaperssell only 700,000 copies.”

Rachid Boudjedra will be interviewed by

Khaled Bin Quqa today at19:00 and will

be discussing the career of author Albert

Camus, with Jerome Ferrari and Vital

Rambaud on Monday, April 29 at 17:45.

Both events take place at the

Discussion Sofa.

Rachid Boudjedra has

been writing or over orty

years and is probably, i

not certainly, the writer

rom the Maghreb who has

sparked the most passion

in his readers, both

positive and negative.

The Algerian author shares his views on writing in Arabic courting controversy.





24 - 29 April 2013

The Middle East had never particularly

interested the Quebec-born cartoon artist,

Guy Delisle. So when he discovered in 2008

that he was moving to Jerusalem, one o the

most divisive, hotly contested cities on the

planet to ollow his partner Nadège, who

worked or Doctors without Borders, it was

entirely new terrain or him.

Delisle had lived in Burma in 2005 with

Nadège and their young son, which had

resulted in his enormously successul Burma

Chronicles travelogue, in which he recounts

in his neat ink drawings, his experience as

a stay-at-home dad discovering a countryliving under a brutal dictatorship. Delisle had

already experienced and recorded Asia in

two previous books, Shenzhen, published in

French in 2000, then in English in 2006, and

Pyongyang, published in French in 2003 and

in English in 2005.

His ourth travelogue, Jerusalem: Chronicles

rom the Holy City, published in 2012 (and

in French in 2011), won the equivalent o

the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or—the

Fauve d’Or, or Best Comic Book Award at the

prestigious Angouleme Comics Festival. In it,

Delisle described the year he spent struggling

to get his head around the manic, divided

city, the Palestinian-Israeli conict, managing

the amily’s lie and fnding time to sketch.Delisle eases his readers into his

sympathetic, slightly naïve character’s lie,

who is based in Arab East Jerusalem where

many o the NGO personnel live. Little by little

he learns the ropes, taking his children to

school, shopping, dealing with checkpoints,

and making a heroic eort to view the conict

rom all sides by visiting the occupied city o

Hebron three times—with a group o French

writers, then with ormer Israeli soldiers

turned activists, and with tourist group led

by a settler. But Delisle is not particularly

interested in the unavoidable political

situation—his strength lies in deceptively

simple descriptions o daily lie. When the

Israeli operation “Cast Lead” begins against

Gaza, Delisle fnds himsel listening to

Nadège’s colleagues recounting horrifc

stories about Palestinian casualties, at the

same time trying to answer his fve-year old

son’s question, “Dad, what’s war?”

Delisle also records his experiences running

comic book workshops or art students in

both the West Bank, in Nablus and Ramallah,

and in Tel Aviv.

“I only we had been able to get a young

Palestinian to talk about what lie is like there,

it would have been better,” remarked Delisle,

“rather than me or the courageous Joe

Sacco doing it. The Palestinian I described

in the book didn’t want to talk about his lie;he wanted to talk about science fction. I

understood him—it was a orm o escape.”

Delisle’s Jerusalem book has yet to be

translated into Arabic but he said he would

be happy i the Arab world were interested

in the book. He may be going to Ramallah

next year to attend a comic book estival-

in-the-making. Now that Delisle and his

partner have two children, they have given up

traveling the world, which was getting “a little

complicated” and have settled in the south

o France.

He is no less busy—a series called the

“Bad Dad guide” about parenting is being

published in French and English, and he is

about to launch into a lengthy biographical

graphic novel about a humanitarian aid

worker who, three months into a job, was

kidnapped and held in Chechnya.

“I want to talk about how one manages when

in captivity,” said Delisle, who added that it

was the frst time he was telling someone

else’s story.

Although he was trained in animation, he has

no intention o transorming his travelogues

into animated flms, such as Marjane

Satrapi’s Persepolis. He had an oer or his

Jerusalem book, but said he turned it down.

“I don’t really want to see mysel in the

streets o Jerusalem saying things I never

really said.”

His comic about Pyongyang, however, may

become a Hollywood flm, and Delisle said he

preerred a flm with real actors, which would

underline the dierence with his book.

For the moment, said Delisle, “I’m quite

happy sitting at my drawing table.”

Chroniques de Jerusalem is published by

Editions Delcourt in French and is published

in English as Jerusalem: Chronicles rom the

Holy City by Jonathan Cape in the UK and

Drawn & Quarterly in the USA and Canada.

Guy Delise will be in conversation with Alia

Yunis at 17:30 today in The Tent. The event

will be followed by a book signing.

Interactive teaching materials

created through the iBooks

Author programme are

signifcantly increasing

student engagement and

pushing teachers to use

more exciting classroom

methods, according to sta

at the United Arab Emirates

University.

by Olivia Snaije

Graphic novelist Guy Delisle documentslie as an expat in war-torn Jerusalem in

his latest work.

An AdventurousLie LivedThrough Line

Drawings



08


24 - 29 April 2013

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