Censorship Is a Topic of Conversation

This year the Arab world's biggest book fair has a major change in store: Cairo will feature a guest of honor. The first guest of honor will be Germany. Mona Naggar reports from Cairo

The ambition of the Egyptian cultural authorities to model the Cairo Book Fair after Frankfurt has reached a new high point. Egypt's old and new culture minister, Faruk Husni, has introduced the concept of the guest of honor in Cairo, and the first country invited to present itself to Egyptian audiences will be Germany.

Germany has had a stand in Cairo for the past 20 years, but this year everything is bigger, livelier and more colorful. The German stand in Hall 3, with its orange, green and white color scheme, presents German institutions that are active in Egypt: the Goethe Institute, the Deutsche Welle, the German Academic Exchange Service and the German Archeological Institute.

Germany's wide-ranging program

The shelves are filled with German books calculated to attract Arab rights buyers: self-help, literature, Islamic studies titles, textbooks, books on soccer, children's books. Representatives of the Frankfurt Book Fair provide orientation.

Egyptian bookshops sell German books and translations from the German. A little café sells pretzels and beverages. A wide range of events for young visitors are held on a platform at the back of the stand, complete with stuffed animals and children's books.

The wide-ranging accompanying program during the fair features readings, discussions with Chamisso Prize laureates, round-table talks on subjects such as orientalism and the image of the Arab world in the German media, and a photo exhibit on women in the Orient and Occident.

At the opening of the German stand the German ambassador in Cairo, Martin Kobler, expressed his hopes that the German presentation would spark curiosity about German culture. For Jutta Limbach, president of the Goethe Institute, Germany's guest-of-honor status in Cairo is the culmination of all previous cultural exchange between Egypt and Germany.

Discussions about censorship rather than licenses

Many Arab publishers at the fair offer translations from the German. As in previous years, the literary bestsellers are works by Hermann Hesse and Perfume, by Patrick Süskind.

The fact that books by Nobel laureate Günter Grass and Christa Wolf have been published in Arabic in recent years has done little to influence the literary interests of Egyptian and Arab readers.

Thus, some Syrian and Lebanese publishers hoped that Germany's guest-of-honor status would have a promotional effect for German literature in Arabic translation. But it remains to be seen whether this can be accomplished by the guest of honor's accompanying program.

The Egyptian interpretation of the Frankfurt Book Fair model did not meet with unanimous approval from the participating publishers in Cairo. The organizers' idea of admitting trade visitors only for the first three days of the fair turned out to be a flop.

The three days dwindled down to one day, which the publishers spent unpacking their book cartons – released too late by the Egyptian customs – rather than receiving visitors and discussing rights.

As at all Arab book fairs, censorship is a topic of conversation among publishers. This year, backstage rumor has it, there will be no major censorship campaign in Cairo. The reason is said to be the Muslim Brotherhood's parliamentary presence. The Egyptian government wants to make a show of liberalism, turning away from its previous policy of confiscating books critical of religion.

Mona Naggar

Translated from the German by Isabel Cole

Qantara.de

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