Palestine was the guest of honour at this year's Salon euro-arabe du Livre in Paris, writes David Tresilian Well-attended as ever, though this year sweltering under a freak heat wave, the 8th Euro-Arab Book Fair which closed today, opened to the public at the Institut du monde arabe in Paris on 24 June, hosting some 260 publishers from 26 countries, including 146 Arab publishers and 114 European publishers producing books on the Arab world. Founded in 1990 and held biannually since, the Fair's purpose is to encourage professional contacts between Arab and European publishers, among them publishers from Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and France, and to act as a showcase for the current state of European publishing on the Arab world and for Arab publishers eager to reach a European public. This year's fair included a section for children's books, in which 43 European and Arab publishers were represented, and a review section, including representation from some 150 Arab and European reviews and journals. There was a strong Egyptian showing at the fair, with various public and private-sector publishers represented, including Al-Ahram, the General Egyptian Book Organisation and Al-Hilal among the former, and Dar al-Sharouq, al-Sharqiyya, and Merit from the latter. As has been the case at previous fairs, this year's event had a guest of honour, Palestine, whose publishing houses and publishers were given special attention in the schedule of events. Various round-table events and colloquia were organised on features of publishing in Palestine, as well as screenings of Palestinian films, a reading by the Palestinian poet Samih el-Qassim, and performances of Palestinian folk-tales. Two round tables in particular drew a large audience. The first, on Palestinian publishing, brought officials from the Palestinian authorities and a representative of Palestinian private-sector publishing to Paris to discuss challenges facing Palestinian publishing and the distribution and circulation of books in Palestine. The second, on the press in Palestine, featured Palestinian journalists, the director-general of the Palestinian General Organisation for Information and the editor of the newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, who discussed challenges facing the Palestinian print media. Participants in the first round table stressed the complexity of the country's present situation, noting that legislation affecting publishing was still being drafted by the still-young Palestinian Authority. Different laws applied depending on whether a book was published in the Israeli occupied territories, in areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority, or in East Jerusalem, with Israeli military censorship controlling publication in the occupied territories, ordinary Israeli law applying in East Jerusalem, and Palestinian law in the Palestinian-controlled areas. Censorship of one form or another had always been a problem in Israeli-controlled areas, the panelists explained, but the Palestinian Authority now exercised no control over what could be published in areas under its jurisdiction, or by whom. Piracy and copyright issues were also matters of concern. For As'ad As'ad of the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, the challenges facing Palestinian publishing came as a result of the country's complex history, with Palestinian publishing before 1967 being a part of the Jordanian industry and publishing in Palestine after 1967 being frustrated by the Israeli occupation. Palestinian publishing in the 1970s and 80s largely depended on external ventures, organised in part by the PLO, though there was also Palestinian publishing within Israel. The 1970s saw the development of literary publication in the occupied territories, notably associated with the Salah el-Din publishing house and the print media. Since the Oslo Accords and the creation of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian government had supported publishing as a matter of public policy, notably through the creation of the General Palestinian Book Organisation, a public-sector body modeled on the similarly named body in Egypt. Mohamed al-Asmer, director-general of the Palestinian Book Organisation and one of the panelists, explained that though publishing in Palestine still faced enormous difficulties, among them difficulties in transporting books owing to the fragmented nature of the territory and Israeli blockades, the Organisation had initiated public-sector publishing of important Palestinian and Arab works of history and literature, while supporting growth in the private sector. One of the successes of this policy had been the foundation of the Palestine International Book Fair in 1996, he said, which saw its sixth edition in Ramallah in March 2005. Cooperation with Arab and foreign publishers was difficult, since borders could be closed preventing the transport of books or the holding of the fair, but the event, supported by UNESCO, had now established itself on the international cultural calendar. It was hoped that the book fair, along with the other initiatives undertaken by the Ministry of Culture, would help develop Palestinian publishing and readership, bring Palestinian publishing closer to Arab publishing and establish links between Palestinians inside Palestine and members of the diaspora. Participants at the second round-table on Palestinian media painted a similar picture of daily challenges to the work of producing reliable newspapers in Palestine and distributing them. For Majida Albatsh, Agence France Presse correspondent in Palestine, and Hafez Barghouti, editor of the newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jarida, many of the problems facing the Palestinian press had historically come from the Palestinian authorities: between 1967 and 1994 the role of the press had been one of "mobilisation and resistance", which had sometimes meant that a "nationalist tone predominated over a professional one" in Palestinian papers and that these did not completely fulfill their responsibilities to readers. However, since 1994 the press had been able to secure greater autonomy, and now the main problem was one of access to information under the Israeli occupation. Movement in the occupied territories was often difficult or impossible, and this, together with the personal danger to journalists, meant that newspapers were often unable to challenge Israeli versions of events. While the Palestinian Authority guaranteed free expression to Palestinian papers, Hafez Barghouti explained that the press in Palestine still has some way to go in fostering investigative reporting and in discussing social issues. This, he said, was as much a question of developing greater expectations of the press among Palestinian readers as of capitalizing on the freedom accorded to it by the Authority. With further events including book signings and discussion of Franco-Palestinian cooperation completing the fair's six-day programme, it is to be hoped that this laudable initiative will continue to reach a wide public of Euro-Arab readers and realise its aim of enhancing cooperation between European and Arab publishers. 8ème Salon euro-arabe du Livre, Institut du monde arabe, Paris, 24 -- 30 June 2005
