Sharjah: It is not a writer’s job to categorise his or her book into any particular genre, it is for readers or critics to decide, a panel of Arab writers echoed during a literary session on the first evening of Sharjah International Book Fair 2015.
In a session on similarities between literary genres, a panel of renowned Arab writers Dr Shukri Al Makhbout, Fatima Sultan Al Mazroui and Hoda Barakat shared their thoughts on the similarities between genres and how writers are least bothered about the issues of classification of their …

Publishers Weekly, November 28th, 2014
Ever since I started Interlink Publishing 30 years ago, I’ve been a passionate advocate of literature in translation. Literature is universal, and great literature travels well. It can thrive at home, in exile, and, yes, in translation. So why do translated titles make up less than 3% of books published annually in the U.S.? I asked this question when I participated in a panel discussion at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.
But when I was invited to speak at the 2014 Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) …

In the spring of 2014, Ahmad Saadawi’s book Frankenstein in Baghdad was awarded the International Prize for Arab Fiction, also known as the Arab Booker. It is a novel of a kind quite different from the ones generally acclaimed by the public or by critics, and from those that have come to me for consideration in the past few years. Whatever its originality or flaws, its being awarded the IPAF could be the sign of an interesting change to come.
 
As I celebrate this fall my tenth year as a literary …

I first thought of this project in a random conversation with Nadim Tarazi, a friend who owned my favorite bookshop in Beirut in the 1990s, and now runs “La Maison du livre”, association for book professionals. He was visiting Paris where I then lived. It was the winter of 2006. I had been a literary agent specialized in Arabic literature for two years, and was struggling to find independent information on books. This is where the realization of a need for more information on Arab books, as well as for quality standards, stemmed from.

A local start-up is turning Arabic books into audio editions, seeking to create the Arab world’s first digital audio library.

Established only three months ago, Masmoo3 has already secured business deals with several local value-added service companies which will introduce its audio content locally and in the region through mobile operators and related websites.

An Egyptian cartoonist who was arrested and had his graphic novel banned under Hosni Mubarak’s regime is to be published in English. Magdy El Shafee wrote the graphic novel “Metro” in 2008. It was banned in his home country and El Shafee was convicted of offending public decency after a lengthy trial.