Rania Khallaf speaks with two publishers attempting to introduce Arabic translations into the German market Khaled Abbas , an Egyptian novelist who emigrated to Germany 15 years ago, studied History of Art in Berlin. He has translated extracts from works by Salah Jahin, Naguib Sorrour and Omar El-Khayam. It was while he was trying to turn these translations into a performance piece that he first realised how little information was available in Germany on Arab literature. In the mid-nineties he wrote and produced "The Arab Chess Game", a play addressing the absence of any real dialogue between East and West, and once again came face to face with the paucity of any understanding of contemporary Arabic literature. In an attempt to bridge the gap Abbas set up the Sphinx Books Agency, with offices in both Berlin and, from March, in Cairo. Arab authors can submit works to the agency which will undertake marketing in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Should a work be accepted by a foreign publisher the author receives 75 per cent of royalties, the agency 25 per cent. "I was shocked when I realised that in Germany Arab literature is restricted to small and, on the whole, marginal German publishing houses. Hardly any links have been forged between leading publishers in the West and Arab publishers, let alone Arab authors. And there is a lot of misunderstanding as well as a lack of communication between Arab and German cultural organisations. I established the Sphinx Agency to market Arab book. Short reviews of around 40 Arabic books will be presented annually on the agency's web site in the hope of interesting German publishers to select texts for translation. The reviews will be available in German and English or French. I hope that Sphinx will come to work as a bridge between Arab and Western publishers. My ambition is for Sphinx to convey a broader picture of the Middle East to the rest of the world. Informed by my own experience of the German book market, the agency selects only Arab literary works that might interest German readers. This does not mean that we will ignore novels that deal with our legacy, but our choices should fit in to some extent with current European literary trends. Because we are a private agency which adopts private projects we receive no official funding though we do negotiate with organisations such as the Supreme Council for Culture in Cairo and they offer moral support. It is a shame, though, that there is no a single project by an official governmental organisation to support the translation of Arab literature. The Sphinx Agency is attempting to gather some financial aid to support translation projects with the funds to be directed towards foreign publishers producing translations of Arabic texts." Hassan Hammad , critic, lives in Switzerland. Two years ago, when the Arab world was the Frankfurt Book Fair's guest of honour, Hammad founded Lisan publishing house which this month issued the first edition of a cultural magazine, also called Lisan . Hammad has published six German translations of Arabic works, including Mustafa Zikri's novel Hura' Mataha Qutiyya , Hassan Abdel-Mawgoud's Ain Al-Qit and collections of poetry by the Lebanese Jumana Haddadand the young Egyptian poet Iman Mirsall. "Lisan is interested in acting as a bridge between German readers and Arab literature. I found that simply translating books, as an individual, is not enough, and with the help of translators, orientalists and authors who live in Germany and Switzerland, developed the idea of publishing Lisan magazine. Our concern is to present Arabic literature, across trends and generations, in the magazine though our primary focus is on new voices. Of course there are already small publishing houses such Lenos Verlag, and larger ones such as DTV, which carry translations of Arabic titles. We aim to supplement that presence, and cooperate with established publishers. One of the major problems with Arabic literature in translation is the lack of proper marketing. The problem is not just confined to small publishing houses, such as Lenos Verlag, which has a backlist of 50 titles translated from Arabic into German. The problem, I think, lies in the way in which Arab literature is presented as a whole. At Lisan we deal with bi-lingual translators, duel nationals who understand both Arab and German cultures. We started with only three translators but now we have a stable of 75. My hope is that the magazine will help promote Arab culture across the board. We also consider the magazine as a workshop for translation from Arabic to German. It provides younger translators a good opportunity to work in the field. Despite being a competitive market we have been encouraged by publishers such as DTV which cooperated with us to the extent of giving us the publishing rights to Arabic texts they had themselves translated. Unfortunately sales of titles we have already produced remain lower than might be. We are still in the early stages, though, and will develop."
