Magali's tour around the world – meeting and interviewing literary professionals

You may have noticed that at the end of each interview, I generally asked my trademark question:

“Let’s say you were to spend the rest of your life alone, on a desert island, with only one book in your pocket… which book would you choose?”

The answers ran the gamut from philosophical works to practical ones, with everything from poetry, Bildungsroman and science fiction in between. They always gave me priceless insight into the people I was speaking to.

As for me, I never found a definite answer to this tricky question… During the world tour, I had brought The Odyssey by Homer but only read a few pages, too taken up by my writing. What’s more, I often read it out loud to Jérémie, who almost systematically went to sleep lulled by “rosy-fingered Dawn”… He however read to me, in bits and pieces, Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, which gave us food for thought throughout the entire trip.

Today, I still can’t answer my own question, hesitating between All the Names by José Saramago and the Petit Larousse French dictionary… for a start!

The answers of the people I interviewed have helped me form an imaginary “ideal library” which, since our return, Jérémie and I have been slowly piecing together for real. Surprisingly, it is not as international as I had assumed it would be. Regardless, today I would like to present you this “ideal library” which, by the fresh glimpses it provides of the people I met during these Excursions into the World of Books, seems to be a nice goodbye present…

Foundational texts

• John McGlynn, publisher in Jakarta (Indonesia), chose La Galigo. “At an estimated 6,000 pages, it may be the longest book in the world.”

• Pinaki Mazumdar, publisher and bookseller in Kolkata (India), chose the Bhagavad Gita. “The sixth part of the Mahabharata.”

• Trasvin Jittidecharak, publisher in Chiang Mai (Thailand), chose The Iliad by Homer. “Unlike The Odyssey, which only deals with questions of family, The Iliad nurtures ideals.”

• And lastly, The Bible was mentioned by Daniel Eduardo Arroyo, librarian in Salta (Argentina) and Rebekah Mak, printer in Singapore.

Nineteenth-century English-language fiction

• Sandra Thibodeaux, Director of the NT Writers’ Centre in Darwin (Australia), chose A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859). “Bearing in mind that Dickens portrays the Paris and London of 1793, while Munkara chooses a twentieth-century Aboriginal setting for her novel, can you see what Sandra chooses to get away from it all?”

• Ugandans Lillian Nyakana, an employee at NABOTU, and Ariho Ivan Mujorizi, bookseller, both chose, without consulting each other first, Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (1876). “My mother, who was always a great reader, had received her copy of the novel at school during the 1970s. In fact, she still has that copy.”

• Alejandro Cerda, psychoanalyst and publisher in Mexico City (Mexico), chose Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865). “He might prefer the rare edition illustrated by Dali, which adds the complexity of its illustrations to the complexity of the plot…”

Twentieth-century English-language fiction

• Walter Bgoya, publisher in Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania), chose The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1952). “This story of endless patience reminds him of his own obstacle-ridden life course.”

• Balsam Saad, publisher and bookseller in Cairo (Egypt), chose Animal Farm by George Orwell (1984). “It rightly raises the question: ‘What really happens when we believe we are doing things right?’”

• Sherif Bakr, publisher and bookseller in Cairo (Egypt), chose Life of Pi by Canadian author Yann Martel (Alfred A. Knopf, 2001). “He would certainly be able to extricate his way out of the most contorted situations, don’t you think?”

• C.D. Moulton, writer in Almirante (Panama), chose Phoenix Tales by American author Gregory Banks (Wheelman Press, 2008). “A touchstone of the science fiction genre.”

Other novels

• Janet De Neefe, director of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (Indonesia), chose Love in the Time of Cholera by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez (Trans. Edith Grossman, Vintage Books, 2007). “Meet violence with hope.”

• Esther Baum-Schaller, bookseller in Frankfurt (Germany), chose One Last Ride on the Merry-go-round by Italian author Tiziano Terzani (HarperCollinsIndia, 2008). “The narrator, suffering from cancer, sets off on a voyage to other civilisations, exploring treatments in other countries and subsequently discovering the richness of foreign cultures.”

• Lauri Luciernaga, cartonera and poet in Mexico City (Mexico), chose On Heroes and Tombs by Argentinian author Ernesto Sábato (Trans. H.R. Lane, Jonathan Cape Ltd 1990). “The story of a tormented love.”

Poetry

• Jacques Aubergy, publisher and bookseller in Marseille (France), chose Mexican author Sor Juana Inès de la Cruz. “Mystic, intimate poems.”

• Mauricio Souza, publisher in La Paz (Bolivia), chose Cesar Cerruto. “A 20th-century Bolivian poet.”

• Yaxkin Melchy, cartonero and poet in Mexico City (Mexico), chose La Vida Nueva by Chilean author Raul Zurita. “A work recounting a fascinating experiment the author performed in the 1990s, looking for poems in the shapes of the clouds over New York.”

• Michael Goh, freelance sales rep in Singapore, chose an anthology of world poetry in English. “After all, as a Singaporean, I like that feeling of being at a crossroads.”

Biographies

• Guillermo Quijas, publisher and bookseller in Oaxaca (Mexico), chose the Memoirs of Pancho Villa by Martin Luis Guzman (Trans. V.H. Taylor, University of Texas Press, 1976). “The story of another man of action!”

• Manar Badr, librarian in Alexandria (Egypt), chose Hypatia by Arnulf Zitelmann (untranslated into English). “As a pagan in the Christian era, a woman amongst men, and a philosopher of uncomfortably progressive views, she was eventually assassinated.”

Philosophy

• Guido Indij, editor in Buenos Aires (Argentina), chose A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem and Helen Lane, Penguin Classics, 2009). “I like Oscar Wilde’s reply, that the best book to take to a desert island would be a blank one, with all the pages yet to be written.”

• Andras Berkes-Brandl, publisher in Blackheath (Australia), chose Es mind én voltam egykor (untranslated into English) by Milàn Füst (1957-58). “The book is a sort of intimate, philosophical diary, quite enigmatic and brilliant. I always have a copy on me.”

• Alvaro Lasso, publisher in Lima (Peru), chose The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Trans. Katharine Woods, Harcourt Brace and Company, 1971). “Another publisher who isn’t likely to get bored any time soon, even if he were deserted on a desert island…”

A children’s book

• I love U by God (Scandinavia Publishing House, 2011) by Stella Maris Stutina was mentioned by its own author (Indonesia). “This book changed my life.”

A few practical books

• Dion P. Sihotang, publisher in Jakarta (Indonesia), chose The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr Steven R. Covey (Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2004). “A personal development guide with advice on improving your life, work methods and inter-personal skills…”

• Stuart Laurence, editor in Sydney (Australia), chose his own publishing house’s  Weather Encyclopedia. “To be able to forecast the island’s weather.”

A classic answer

Of course, there were also those who had no idea which book to choose, my favourite answer being from Kohwai, enfant terrible of Malaysian publishing: “On a desert island, I wouldn’t have any time to read. I would be too busy looking for Eve!”

Other ideas at BiblioMonde

If you are looking for other ideas for reading or travel, I heartily recommend browsing the website of Parisian non-profit BiblioMonde, which offers categorised, annotated book lists on countries of the world, without separating the history books from fine literature, travel books, cookbooks or children’s books. It’s an original approach which is all too rarely taken by libraries and bookshops. Founder Bruno Teissier explains his approach: “The idea came to me when I had to scour all the aisles of my neighbourhood’s largest bookshop to track down publications on Portugal, the country where I was travelling that year”.

And you?

And that is the end of our blog. But it is still open to comments, so please feel free to leave one!

How about you? What book would you choose if you could take only one to a desert island?

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When I went back to the classes of Elise Gantaume at Lycée Ampère vocational high school (Marseille), I started off telling the students (age 16-18) about the trip and answering their helter-skelter questions. Next, I offered to do a writing workshop with them. Each one had been handed a photo of someone sleeping, taken by Jérémie during the world tour, and I asked them to imagine what the person might be dreaming about…

At first, hesitation: some don’t feel particularly like writing, others want to see pictures of their classmates, and yet others want a different picture. Little by little they quiet down and each, huddled over his or her page, imagines, dreams and writes. Sometimes I hear a laugh, sometimes a hand goes up. They ask for the spelling of such or such a word, or for an idea to keep a story going along. After a half hour, they agree to read out loud, not necessarily their own story. The shyest ones give me their paper so I can read for them. The texts, written in all spontaneity, are often astonishing and sometimes humourous… Here are a few of them. It was a difficult to choose from amongst the twenty that were written that day.

My thanks go to Elise for entrusting me her classes for this endeavour. And thanks to the students for all getting into the writing activity!

I am dreaming that I want to steal this truck loaded with cement. I would drive until finding a good plot of land to build a gigantic villa beside the sea while enjoying the sunshine at breaks. On this plot of land there would be no noise, no roadway for the cars, trucks, motorcycles or scooters. To have a beautiful landscape I would admire every day upon waking. To have a rooster wake me up in the morning around 11:00. Only he had better look out: if he woke me up too early, he would end up in my plate at noon! I am woken up by the truck revving up – so irritating! It leaves… I should have stolen it.

Saïd Hassani

I am dreaming that I am on a raft. The movement of the waves rocks me, I feel calm, far from the city with its endless noise from cars and people. Here, I am on a small, floating, meandering cloud. The song of the birds, the faraway forests on the bank remind me of another time, my childhood. In the distance, I hear a noise, a noise that is not of this world… A car horn! That wakes me up, I come back to reality, here, lying on a low wall. And my old bones are aching… I’ve shaken off this beautiful dream, I am awake.

Geoffroy Péchin

I am dreaming that, while meditating after a prayer, the world in which I live disappears. I find myself in a world where everything is green and luxuriant, then suddenly, before my eyes appears the Buddha, he who attained the summits of perfection, he who attained all. He tells me that finally, I also know everything, and that my patience and meditation have elevated my spirit and life to a state of perfection. Henceforth, I am a minor deity, only I wonder how people will know who I am. That’s when I hear in my head a voice calling me. I believe I am being prayed to, but that’s when it all comes crashing down and the feeling of the cold floor tiles chills me. I am awake.

Sébastien Godard

I am dreaming that, while making a delivery on my scooter, I started up a road with no end. During this trip, my back tyre went flat twelve times, and twelve times, I opened the boot and there was always a spare tyre, each time a different colour. I thought my delivery run was taking forever and that the sun would never set; it was always blinding my eyes. That’s when someone flagged me down. I stopped and she said: “What are you doing here?” I answered her: “I’m making a delivery.” Then she asked me to whom I was making the delivery. And I answered: “To Father Christmas. What I’m carrying are the letters from children all over the world.” I took off again, and after three hours on the road, saw a signpost where it was written, “House of Father Christmas”. When I arrived at his house, I opened the door and saw someone sitting on a chair, dressed as Father Christmas. It was me! That is when I woke up.

Kévin Jamet

I am dreaming that tomorrow, I will leave my work begging in the streets of Kuala Lumpur, the city of my birth. I will escape my daily drudgery wandering around this magnificent Malaysian city, which I will someday get out of bound for a new world.  I’ll enter the life of these people painted on the wall of the street where I sleep every night, I’ll make Malaysian people laugh, I’ll help them fight against poverty. Once all the inhabitants of this country are won over by my humour and kindness, I’ll wake up.

Ahmed Desné

I am dreaming that I am waking up in a pyramid with a pickaxe hanging from my belt. We are building a pyramid for the Pharoah. The work is so hard, I  ache all over. Once night falls, I go home to my family. After eating, I go to sleep and dream that I am in a future world with chariots that roll along by themselves and picture frames that broadcast moving images, and then I wake up with a start, since someone knocked at the door. Quickly, I wake up since the policeman beside me wanted to know if I was all right, since he couldn’t see my chest moving. I wake up.

Yazid Kisma

I am dreaming that I am flying above my city, Varanasi, then I keep on until Mumbai, where I head towards Bollywood. From way up there, I see the film shoot and glimpse the famous actor Shahrukh Khan. I keep up my flight until the Himalayas, where I try to reach the peak, in vain. With this disappointment, I decide to fly over the Ganges from its source to its finish. I see cranes, zebus and herds of hippopotamuses. Finally, I want to go back home to Varanasi, but along the way, I fly into a large building. The shock wakes me up and here I find myself in my own bed. It was only a dream.

Mehdi Belaamane

I am dreaming that tomorrow will be better than yesterday,

Me leaving behind my rickshaw and driving a GTR,

Me throwing away my sandals, strutting in my Stars,

I’ll cross the city surrounded by women.

All the while my grey beard revealing my age,

With my bald spot giving me a certain air.

My rickshaw driver’s life is behind me!

Nights of jetsetting and luxury are mine!

I am dreaming that tomorrow,

I won’t wake up

Because real life is too hard.

Tomorrow will not be

Better than yesterday.

Sef-Eddine Mze

Photos taken (in order) in Mexico, Varanasi (India), Chiang Mai (Thailand), Jakarta (Indonesia), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Edfu (Egypt), Varanasi (India) and Kolkata (India).

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One year, one month and eighteen days: that is exactly how long the world tour took. Having left Marseille on 12 October 2009, Jérémie and I arrived back at the French Riviera city on 30 November 2010.

But the journey kept going in my book-themed reports, which I have only now stopped writing! In the same vein, another piece of writing is in the works: a book on people who, all around this big, wide world of us, promote books and reading.

It’s a project in search of a publisher: spread the word!

Coming home means finally being able to share our experiences. With our loved ones, true, but not only them. After discovering so much, learning so much, I long to inspire in others the desire to take flight, read and write. And so between conferences and writing workshops, the world tour ambles on in these moments of transmission and sharing.

There was Alcazar Library (Marseille) and its generous audience of 80 people. Thanks to Sarah Tremel and Mireille Barbieri for reserving this beautiful amphitheatre for me, and for their unforgettable welcome.

There was Lycée Lacordaire (Marseille) and its captivating literature classes. Thanks to Catherine Tardivel-Lacombe and Corine Robet for hooking the interactive whiteboard up to my slide show — and for hooking the students on travel and books. Our meeting inspired them to write very pretty haikus, which I invite you to discover by clicking here.

There was Lycée Albert de Mun (Nogent-sur-Marne) and its enthusiastic students. Thanks to Anne-Marie Lebon-Crépin for finding a way to fit my presentation into the sacrosanct official curriculum.

There was Lycée Ampère (Marseille) and its students with a fantastic gift for the gab. Thanks to Elise Gantaume, who let them follow my distant odyssey close up.

The young authoress Elise Blot, in Marseille, enhanced her travel writing workshop with photos and anecdotes picked and pocketed from here and there on the blog. After an initial session on the topic of layovers, she started her second session with a few portraits of bookworms photographed by Jérémie. Here is what CD Moulton inspired one of the workshops participants to write:

“[...] Kilometres of moving sidewalks lead us from lounge to lounge, one for landings, one for departures. We follow each other, pass each other, zombie-like, empty stares deciphering the display screens. Flight announcements, concert of luggage wheels. All airport layovers share something so similar and timeless that the memory of the real time we spent there escapes me. Duty free boutiques come and go, their dizzying array of luxury products lined up in the blinking of more or less intense lights…

“Departure lounge for our flight to Ho Chi Minh City. We will finally be able to sink into our plush seats after this endless wandering! It isn’t a dream, but it is part of the journey, it already is the journey… In this no man’s land where everyone bustles about, we clutch a moment to drink a herbal tea before boarding once again. At the table beside me, I notice a Western-looking gentleman, around sixty, with white hair, beard and t-shirt, brown woven trousers, bare-footed, lost in his reading: The Odyssey by Homer, apparently a French edition. I speak to him since he doesn’t appear to be a traveller. Not surprised in the least by my curiosity, he tells me I am right, he is not doing a layover in this area set aside for that purpose… Rather, he is playing the castaway, right down to the bare feet, trying to understand why Ulysses was able to resist the song of the Sirens [...]“.

Louise Thollard

I attend the last session on return trips… Elise Blot suggests the topic: “You’re returning, you’re coming home! What do you feel? What relationship do you still have with the book you took with you at the beginning of the trip?” After all, there are books for desert islands and books for globe-trotter’s bags. While writing, Elise calls out words — “criss-cross”, “origin”, “stop” — that set the pace for our texts like milestones beside a roadway.

” [...] Stopping has been my daily lot for over three hundred nights. Compelled to navigate here and there, to the beat of the dusks or the misty, early mornings, to the beat of people’s moods, as well. I often tire of this endless shifting, both physical and mental. In these moments of great fatigue, Emperor Hadrian comes to me under the pen of Marguerite Yourcenar: I read, putting down my bags at the humblest of shelters. The intelligence and love of this man. He seems to me to have diffused his human adventure through hills and valleys down to the smallest hamlets. A month and a half ago, I bartered the book for a bit of goat’s milk. I have no idea what the goat herder will do with it, but Afghans are remarkably ingenious…

“From now on, I hope to be able to cast anchor, as though emptied of what I was “formerly”! And yet full of so many other treasures.

“Travelling the world is a risky sport. It is not generally for the wide-eyed wanderer: we have expectations and fears, in other words, vigilance. [...]

“Did this journey really happen? I can’t help thinking of Alexander the Great, who got as far as India and then never came back; not a victim of arrows or fevers, but active in his free decision not to come back. If, forced after all by his generals and soldiers, Alexander had come back home to his country, what would have become of him?

“Tomorrow I am going home. Tonight I am a Martian, tonight I am partly Alexander: is it not risky to return so laden with riches?

“Will I get away with it unharmed?”

Marcel Delestrade

It’s true that the return may be the most difficult leg of a world tour. But the wealth of discussions it gives rise to makes the transition smoother by paving the way for meeting new people and making unexpected discoveries. After all, did not eighteenth-century writer Xavier de Maistre take an astonishing “voyage around his room”? Adventure is everywhere, even on your street corner!

I offered Elise Gantaume’s students a writing workshop. The texts they came up with will be presented in the next article…

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Interview with Nazly Farid, manager of the Francophone Library at the New Library of Alexandria, or Bibalex (Egypt)

As I mentioned earlier, the New Library of Alexandria currently holds the goodly sum of a million documents, mostly ordered from local and international bookshops. These regular acquisitions, made following a comprehensive policy, are not the only way the collection is enriched. To them are added several donations, and not always puny ones at that. To illustrate, the National Library of France (BNF) recently shipped entire cargo containers of books to Alexandria, in the event modifying the face of the Bibalex considerably and lastingly. Of the 80 languages represented in the Alexandrian library, French suddenly took a place of choice alongside Arabic and English. These three languages now make up half of the collection. But how did this Franco-Egyptian love affair begin?

In 2006, legal deposit laws changed in France. Publishers must now submit only two copies of each work published, instead of the four that were previously required. This change of policy, along with a very real storage problem in the national repository libraries, moved the largest of them, the BNF, to donate 500,000 surplus books to the Bibalex, which had until then never received such a large donation. According to Nazly Farid, the manager of this brand new Francophone Library, the person to be credited with the gesture is Gérald Grunberg, former director of Centre Pompidou’s Public Information Library (BPI) from 2001 to 2006 and current International Affairs Delegate at the BNF. Grunberg was involved in preparing the reconstruction of the Alexandrian library from 1997 to 2000, so it is understandable that he seized the change of law to whisper in a few ears…

Launched in November 2009, the donation covered ten years of legal deposits from 1996 to 2006. The books arrived in February 2010 and are currently being classified. In one year, several library partners got organised to deal with this massive influx of books. In particular, a team of about fifty people was set up to manage and make best use of the new collection. “This donation has occasionally been poorly received in-house,” states Nazly. “After all, it takes a lot of work, particularly to record the titles in the databases.” She adds: “We had to sort through all the containers that were sent to us. Some titles were eliminated off the bat due to their near pornographic nature. They had nothing going for them, especially here!” Although direct censorship does not officially exist in Egypt, some subjects are still taboo.

These hurdles do not prevent Nazly from stating without hesitation that the donation is a success from all points of view: “A success in terms of policy and in terms of media, and let’s not forget, on a scale with the New Library of Alexandria, which as a result became the fourth largest French library outside of France.” It goes without saying that many projects have been organised to make best use of the collection, with the unconditional support of Bibalex director Ismail Serageldin, a former vice-president at the World Bank. The Bibalex’ policy of promoting the French language is therefore in full swing, in partnership with the French language Université Senghor of Alexandria. Some 260 library employees — 10% of staff — are French-speaking. In fact, of the six individuals who introduced us to the Bibalex, three spoke perfect French. Now, the challenge is to showcase the French culture and language. For Nazly, this is a blessing: “The BNF sent us the identity that the Bibalex was lacking. And since that identity happens to speak French, we fall quite nicely into this North/South dialogue which is all the rage”. She enthusiastically states that “showcasing the French-speaking world is a thrilling job. In Egypt, we need cultural content slightly off the beaten path. I believe that this French language collection will help Alexandrians, first of all, and subsequently all Egyptians, become well-read.”

She adds, a smile playing on her lips: “But let’s not go so fast! We are still in the construction phase. To quote the French, grasp too much and you lose your grip…”

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(If I counted right, my title is an Alexandrine couplet)

Interview with Manar Badr, service director at the New Library of Alexandria, or Bibalex (Egypt)

If Manar Badr was setting off for a desert island with just one book in her pocket, she would choose Hypatia by Arnulf Zitelmann (untranslated into English), a German youth novel which tells the story of courageous Hypatia, an extraordinary Alexandrian woman. As a pagan in the Christian era, a woman amongst men, and a philosopher of uncomfortably progressive views, she was eventually assassinated. “This story really impressed me”, Manar confides. “I would probably draw tremendous strength from the book to struggle by on my desert island!”

Yet, she admits that since working at Bibalex, she has less and less time to read. A paradox? Not really. It is just that her responsibilities do not leave her much time for it anymore. Every week, she offers a play reading in Arabic, French or English. The night before our visit, The Misunderstanding by Albert Camus had been read in the original by volunteers. Every month, Arabic poetry is also in the spotlight.

Manar also participates in the American reading programme, The Big Read, organised by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The programme chooses an American book, then sets up activities on it for an entire year. In 2009, no fewer than three books were chosen and translated into Arabic with NEA funding: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1961), Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953) and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939). In 2010, it was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), by Mark Twain, that were honoured. The old Arabic edition was reprinted with funding from NGO Arts Midwest. Under this programme, books are distributed free of charge to readers who request them, and different contests are organised on one of the book’s themes: writing an essay or presenting a painting, photo or map drawing.

And that is not all. Manar is also, and primarily, in charge of managing the services of the main library. An Information Desk on each floor orients visitors, yet users often find it difficult to get their bearings alone, not just because the Bibalex is so immense, but also because they are not used to libraries or the Dewey decimal system. “That’s why we organise three free training sessions every day,” explains Manar. “That way, people who are a little lost can understand how to get around and use the on-line book catalogues, which can be accessed from the 360 computers running in the main reading room”. The Bibalex team also organises presentations in universities, hospitals and cultural centres to encourage Egyptians to come to the library.

Students can also learn to write endnotes. “This is a new concept in the Arabic world,” Manar stresses. “We published the first manual of style with rules on how to cite sources in a bibliography. Before, students indicated their references in their own individual ways”. On a sidenote, although the legal deposit of master’s and Ph.D. dissertations is traditionally done at the Aïn Shams Library in Cairo, the Bibalex is the country’s second largest library where dissertations are formally submitted. They can then be consulted by the public. Against this backdrop, the importance of the educational role of the New Library of Alexandria becomes even more apparent.

Training and awareness raising are also crucial in the section for the blind and visually impaired, named after Taha Hussein, an Egyptian writer who was unsighted. Audio cassettes and 400 Braille books are available in this section. The department is even equipped with two Braille printers to make up for the lack of Arabic books directly published in Braille. One of these machines even reproduces pictures in relief so that they become “visible” for the blind. The visually impaired can also benefit from free IT courses and assistance from read-aloud volunteers. Additionally, fifteen computers adapted for various visual disabilities are provided. Some are equipped with Daisy, a complex programme that reads books aloud, and is even able to perform searches and set up bookmarks at the reader’s request. Others offer many possibilities to adjust the colours, brightness and font size. It is a hefty set of equipment which must be explained to new users.

“Even book professionals need to be trained, just imagine!” Manar quips. “At the university, there are specialised courses up to the Ph.D. level, but they have not been updated from a technical standpoint for many years”. For example, student librarians rely exclusively on printed documents, the limits of which quickly become evident; it is difficult for them to learn how to use the databases or to serve the public. “We were starting to have problems during the recruitment process, so we ended up setting up in-house courses lasting one or two months to teach new hires the basics of the job”. Unlike France, competition-based hiring is unheard of in Egypt, regardless of the discipline involved. Of the many unsolicited applications sent to the Bibalex, the ones that are kept on file feature some sort of computer diploma, TOEFL-type English certificate (which is often an obstacle, Manar points out) and four years of university study after the equivalent to A-levels.

This helps explain why, in the department where we were on the second basement floor of the Bibalex, few people have done library studies. Manar first studied sociology and journalism before her excellent French and other skills won her a one-year scholarship for graduate library studies at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Sciences de l’Information et des Bibliothèques (ENSSIB), the highly prestigious French school for those who are librarians by calling. In fact, Alexandria and Villeurbanne signed, and have renewed, an agreement which is even more important now that the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) recently donated a considerable quantity of its collection to the Bibalex.

But not a word more on this donation, since it is the subject of the next post…

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Part two of the tour of Bibalex, the New Library of Alexandria (read part one)

While touring the Bibalex, we hardly knew which way to turn, there were so many exhibits. Which should we choose? The natural paintings on papyrus by Egyptian artist Adam Henin? The rare engravings and photographs depicting Alexandria since the fifteenth century? The watercolours and personal effects of Shadi Abdel Salam, the producer of several classic films such as The Night of Counting the Years (1969)? The homage to Anwar al-Sadat, with the blood-stained suit he was wearing the day of his assassination?

This bewildering array of choices does not even take into account the library departments themselves. There is everything from rare books to maps, from the stunning repository of documents of international institutions to the arts and media library, equipped with television rooms and computers to consult CDs and DVDs. And then there are the special collections holding the personal libraries of Egyptian thinkers like Abdel Ahmed Badawi — we feel like around every corner we will stumble upon some new treasure. After all, the New Library of Alexandria loves numbers as much as Letters: with its eight research centres, fifteen permanent exhibitions and four museums, we would need a thousand and one nights to explore this wealth of knowledge!

At the International School of Information Science (ISIS), ambitious research on new library science technologies is conducted, also reflecting the dynamic nature of the library. For example, the Bibalex is a partner of the universal digital library, whose goal is to digitally preserve one million books from around the world. To accomplish this, it cooperates with about twenty other libraries, particularly in India, China and the United States. Some 150,000 titles from its collection, mostly in Arabic, have already been scanned. In fact, Egypt is the only Arabic country to participate in the project. Only 5% of works still under copyright can be accessed for free. It is now possible to freely consult the famous Description de l’Egypte, a study commissioned by none other than Napoleon Bonapart during his expedition of 1798. The original, a heavy volume with yellowed pages, lies in rest in a glass showcase…

Similarly, Bibalex undertook the digital preservation of the “Memory of Modern Egypt“. Major episodes of national history are covered in an almost journalistic fashion: freely consultable on-line, contemporary articles, post cards, stamps, even audio and sometimes video archives give the possibility of discovering the building of the Egyptian state. These pages should be available in French sometime this year. As for the “memory of the Suez Canal“, it has already been recorded and translated. Safe to say, for the librarians of Alexandria, work is all about blowing the dust off many a book cover and generously sharing the treasures they safeguard.

The Bibalex also manages a monumental Internet archive on a par with the Great Pyramids. Believe it or not, around 70 billion web pages are recorded here for the period from 1996 to 2007. They can be consulted from anywhere, even if the insatiable web swallowed them up long ago.

But there’s more! It is in Alexandria that we can find one of the few Expresso Book Machines in the world. Needless to say, it doesn’t have much to do with coffee. Rather, it is a machine that can print and bind a 500-page book in twenty minutes. The idea behind acquiring this machine is to encourage Egyptians to read more, since Expresso Books would be much cheaper than the originals. That said, the machine is not up and running yet: if the goal is to make the entire collection available to the public, copyright issues have yet to be resolved.

The Bibalex therefore aims to provide a model, and successfully meets that goal with the constant research it carries out to put its collection to good use. Its emphasis on new technologies is not for mere show. Rather, the purpose is to genuinely facilitate the circulation of knowledge, to make it accessible to the largest number of people possible. It is clearly evident why, between welcoming the almost 4,000 daily visitors and carrying out all these projects (of which I only mentioned the highlights), a headcount of 2,300 employees is not excessive. It is less clear why 75% of these employees are women, even if the same trend can be seen elsewhere as well, such as in Europe.

My next articles will pay homage to two of these women who work behind the scenes at the Bibalex.

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Tour of Bibalex, the New Library of Alexandria (Egypt)

Above all, I would like to warmly thank Ms Rania Emara (press and public relations department), without whom these meetings and fantastic discoveries would not have been possible. Mr Mohamed Konbar, who as a high school student did an exchange in Gardanne (isn’t it a small world!), was an excellent guide and spoke perfect French. Ms Manar Badr, library services director, and Ms Nazly Farid, French library director, also gave us a moment of their precious time, showing an admirable sense of hospitality. And I cannot forget to thank Ms Hadir Ashraf, who showed us the more unexpected corners of Bibalex, as well as Ms Rania Farouk, who opened our eyes to the library for the visually impaired and the blind.

At the recommendation of poet Demetrius of Phaleron, the Ancient Royal Library of Alexandria was founded in 288 BC by Ptolemy I, Alexander the Great’s successor. In its heyday it held the trifling sum of 700,000 papyri, equal to 100,000 books today. In 47 BC, during the war between Ptolemy XIII  and Julius Caesar, the latter commanded that the Alexandrian fleet be reduced to ashes. The fire took on such proportions that it reached and ravaged the library, located as it was facing the sea. Because of the increasing number of papyri stored in the mother library, a daughter library had been founded, but it also was eventually destroyed in 391, during the conflict between pagans and Christians. When Emperor Theodosus ordered the destruction of all the pagan temples of Alexandria, the edict indiscriminately struck both religious buildings and the library which was housed… in a temple to the god Serapis! All these stories, more or less confirmed by historians, nurtured the legend of the Library of Alexandria so that it eventually shone much further than the famed lighthouse of the same city. However, in the wake of wars and pillaging, nothing was left after the fourth century of our era. From this troubled period of history, only one papyrus was saved and is today conserved in the Austrian National Library.

In 1972, Mostafa El-Abbadi, professor emeritus of Greco-Roman Studies at the University of Alexandria, raised the idea of “reviving the ancient values of the city”. The Library was once again on people’s lips. To rebuild it, in 1989 the Egyptian government and UNESCO organised an international architectural design competition. Some 1,400 architectural firms from around the world entered. It was Norwegian team Snøhetta which, despite its members’ average age of 25, won over the selection panel. Construction started in 1995, with the support of a group of Egyptian architects led by Mamdouh Hamza and the involvement of English, Italian and Egyptian companies. On 16 October 2002, Bibalex was at last inaugurated, almost on the exact location of the ancient library, right beside the Mediterranean (which we were deeply moved to lay eyes on again after such a long journey). The final construction costs rang in at USD 220 million, of which USD 120 million were paid by Egypt and 65 million by other Arabic countries. Today, its day-to-day operating costs are covered by public funds as well as private donors and one-off sponsors for each of the approximately 700 events organised every year, such as concerts, conferences and exhibitions.

Bibalex has three buildings. First, there is the Conference Center built and inaugurated in 1991. Next, there is the main hall which holds the library proper as well as museums and exhibitions. For this hall, the architects imagined a building in the shape of a reclining disk reminiscent of the rising sun. Taking a lesson from history, they included fireproof interior curtains to protect against flames and prevent any potential fire from spreading. In the event, once the temperature reached 65° water would be directly sprayed from the ceilings. Beside the “rising sun” we find a “moon”, built by France, which holds a planetarium open to the public.

Bird’s eye view available on the library website

The entire complex offers 40,200 m² entirely dedicated to reading and culture. One area is especially designed for children aged 6 to 11, and another for 12- to 15-year-olds. The main reading room alone would be worth the detour to visit Alexandria. From the top of a platform nicknamed the “Triangle of Callimachus“, after a librarian of the ancient library, we look out over the largest reading room in the world (13,600 m²), which seats up to 2,000 readers at once. One million volumes, of which 800,000 are print copies (the rest being CDs, DVDs and maps) are currently available. Each year, the collection grows by 15 to 25%. The Bibalex collection will ultimately count a stunning 5 million documents. For now, library loans are only authorised in the children’s libraries. They may someday be generalised to the rest of Bibalex if the main problems of theft and losses can be effectively dealt with.

From an architectural standpoint, even the amateur eye can appreciate this masterpiece. Seven stories flow down in a harmonious cascade of open mezzanines. 66 columns representing stylised lotus flowers hold up a sloped ceiling which lets in diffuse daylight for natural lighting which will not damage the documents. The blue and green colours chosen to filter the light symbolise the alliance between earth and sea; on a more practical level, they are also easier on the eyes. In the walls of Zimbabwe granite, small niches pay homage to the ancient technique of papyrus storage. The decorations in Egyptian copper were carefully oxidised to prevent any subsequent change in colour. On the outer wall, 4,200 signs of 120 ancient and modern languages adorn the stone, such as braille, musical notes, Greek and Latin letters, and of course, hieroglyphs…

In part two of this tour, you will see the inside of the Library and learn how it aims to position itself on the cutting edge of technology.

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In which we see that book industry support schemes are not always received as expected, even in the largest Arab-speaking country…

Part three of the analysis on publishing in Egypt (read parts one and two) arising from my discussions with Sherif Bakr (Al-Arabi Publishing House, Arab Academy for Professional Publishing), Heba Salama (Book House Publishing House), Ali Hamed (Sanabel Publishing House) and Balsam Saad (Al-Balsam Publishing House and Bookshop) in Cairo.

The underlying, long-term problem of the Egyptian publishing industry, as we have clearly seen, is poorly organised distribution which hinders access to books. To encourage readers to buy books despite all this, Suzanne Moubarak, the wife of the deposed Egyptian president, launched the Reading for All campaign. The initiative helped bring down the sale prices of selected books, which went from an average of twenty Egyptian pounds (about EUR 2.50), to about four Egyptian pounds (EUR 0.50). On an even greater scale, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) entrusted Washington-based NGO Academy for Educational Development (AED) with carrying out a programme for establishing libraries in Egyptian schools. With 400 million dollars in subsidies, the printings of selected titles reached 40,000 to 100,000 copies. On an Internet page dedicated to the project, USAID states: “The National Book Program provided over 24 million books for libraries and classrooms in all 39,000 public primary, preparatory, and secondary schools in Egypt.”

However, a disillusioned Sherif Bakr bemoans the fact that these good intentions were undermined by corruption and “American stupidity”. For example, the programme exclusively stressed the need to promote messages of peace and tolerance. “Yet history is not only about wars, especially in Egypt, which has such a long history! USAID wanted more tolerance, less violence, less religion…” Sherif shakes his head. “Can you imagine that in Egypt — less religion?” In his opinion, the programme’s failure can also be explained by one small element of how it was run: for any book that was stolen or lost, the teacher responsible had to pay 100 Egyptian pounds. As a result, class bookcases were put under lock and key…

Despite everything, the programme encouraged widespread creation of quality children’s books. Publisher Balsam Saad, who presented us her Al-Balsam publishing house and children’s bookshop, tells us that, even though she did not do anything specifically for the USAID programme, she was able to benefit from it. “In 2006, I had proposed a mock-up to Nahdet Misr, a major Egyptian publisher who notably produces Harry Potter in Arabic. As it so happens, USAID wanted to support large publishers cooperating with small ones like mine.” That is how, through Nahdet Misr, four Al-Balsam titles were chosen and printed at 8,000, 11,000, 20,000 and 40,000 copies respectively. The largest runs were intended for primary schools, the others for secondary schools. “It was fantastic for us! Within that framework, we were able to launch a ‘Harry Potter’ of our own, a novel by Tarik A. Bary about a little boy who can talk to objects. Speaking to its success, the author is already thinking about book two!”

As for Book House Publishers, two of its titles were chosen for the USAID project, and 32,000 copies of each were printed. “Of course, that encouraged me,” remembers Heba Salama. “I took advantage of the favourable climate to prepare other children’s collections, particularly illustrated biographies of famous people such as Marco Polo and Marie Curie. Of the 3,000 copies of each title, 1,500 were bought up by the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation based in Dubai. However, since the USAID project came to an end, any copies still in stock have been very difficult to sell.”

So, perhaps like many other international aid programmes, this one’s perverse effects surfaced once it came to an end. Sherif sums up the situation: “In USAID’s wake, all the costs have gone up: illustrators, printers, designers… And now, Egyptian publishers want nothing to do with children’s books, since the market is saturated. You can’t imagine the number of projects left languishing in back drawers!”

In conclusion, all the Egyptian publishers I met spoke in different tones. On the one hand many projects are coming together, from independent bookshops to professional training. On the other hand figurative tidal waves seem to sweep these positive initiatives off their feet, be they the industry’s lack of unity or the aid programmes which, through excessive do-gooding, become reprehensible. With these different tunes being sung, who knows whether Egyptian publishing is feeling the first stirrings of flight, or whether the clay feet of the sphynx will continue to crumble away?

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In which we are stunned to find that the largest Arab-speaking country produces no bestsellers…

Part two of the analysis on publishing in Egypt (read part one), arising from my discussions with Sherif Bakr (Al-Arabi Publishing House, Arab Academy for Professional Publishing), Heba Salama (Book House Publishing House), Ali Hamed (Sanabel Publishing House) and Balsam Saad (Al-Balsam Publishing House and Bookshop) in Cairo.

For projects meandering off the beaten path, Egyptian publishers can never count on colossal sales. Ali Hamed manoeuvres the daunting obstacle course quite well. He continues to work for Dar al-Hilal (”the crescent”), the state publishing house founded in 1892 which, at its height (1950-70), published magazines, Mickey Mouse comics and classics of Egyptian and international literature. But he also publishes books he likes and chooses himself at Sanabel (”wheat kernels”) publishing house. He does everything himself: editing, layout, printing. The result is a small but painstakingly chosen book list: Jack London, Raouf Moussad (an Egyptian journalist), Marquez… Likewise, he published Me and Japan by Ragai Wanis (untranslated), a 73-year-old Egyptian painter and caricaturist who now lives in Australia. In the autobiography, Wanis tells about and illustrates the year 1962, which he spent in Japan. Ali timidly confides: “I hope to sell 3,000 copies of this book in one year. Is that perhaps a bit too ambitious?” Sherif Bakr teases him: “Yes, you’re a hopeless dreamer…” They laugh together.

For his part, with Al-Arabi’s publications in the social sciences, Sherif only prints 1,000 copies of each title and still struggles to sell that much in three years. He uses all channels possible to get them known: his bookshop, universities, mail order, Facebook… not to mention the region’s book fairs, such as the one in Khartoum, Sudan. Yet all these fairs are for the general public, so few copies are sold there.

The core of the problem appears to be the weakness of its distribution network, more so than any cruel lack of buyers. I was stunned to hear from the mouth of a publisher like Sherif: “If you, the reader, want to buy a book, you might wait 24 hours…or even an entire lifetime! In Egypt, there is no reliable way to know where you can find a book.” Until six years ago, there were no independent bookshops in the country besides a handful of small boutiques, often associated with a publishing house (like Al-Arabi), which also sold magazines and candies. In addition, second-hand booksellers have a long-standing tradition of setting up shop on the sidewalks. The large independent bookshop Diwan, with its curious whiff of Europe in the air, was the first of its kind in Cairo. “What’s more, Amazon doesn’t exist in the Arab World,” Sherif points out. “To sell books online, we only have a few small sites. Actually, Egyptians don’t trust Internet.”

In this situation, we understand how a social sciences publishing house like Al-Arabi can have no bestsellers to its name. “But I’m not complaining,” the publisher remarks. “Actually, I would go so far as to say that it is the successful publisher who is unfortunate. He won’t feel any greater financial repercussions; rather, his book will simply be pirated on a larger scale, that’s all!” This little digression reveals another problem: the lack of legal protection. As recently as two or three years ago, publishers did not sign agreements with their authors! Now, the latter are more aware of their rights, and do not hesitate to sue some publishers. “Take my own case,” Sherif explains, “I constantly add clauses to my authors’ agreements, yet that didn’t keep me from having two lawsuits on my back right now.” Ali goes on to say: “In Egypt, there are four different translations of the major works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. They were published without obtaining the translation rights first! For the first three, it was outright theft since the publishers weren’t up on their copyright laws. The fourth was published by me. Unlike the others, I asked the representative to acquire the rights for the Arab World. Yet the representative outright refused to ‘deal with thieves’. Well, too bad, I published the new translation in my possession anyways, and was able to sell 3,000 copies of Marquez’ autobiography in only three months. It was great, but I would have preferred to do things legally”.

On the international scale, Sherif regrets that too few subsidy schemes exist for translation from the Arabic. “In 2002, the popularity of The Yacoubian Building [Fourth Estate, 2007] raised many hopes in the book industry. It is a very well-written novel which encouraged a resurge in interest for contemporary Arabic fiction, even within the Arab World”. The glimmer of hope is still faint, but one day, it may metamorphose into a radiant sun…

The third and last part of this tour of Egyptian publishing will deal with development projects in the book industry, particularly the American programme, USAID…

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In which it shall be seen that the largest Arab-speaking country is not yet a publishing giant…

This trio of articles on publishing in Egypt arose from my discussions with Sherif Bakr (Al-Arabi Publishing House, Arab Academy for Professional Publishing), Heba Salama (Book House Publishing House), Ali Hamed (Sanabel Publishing House) and Balsam Saad (Al-Balsam Publishing House and Bookshop) in Cairo.

In Egypt, like in India, the publishers’ association does not provide any figures on the book market. The only available information has been compiled by the Frankfurt Book Fair. Publisher, bookseller and literary agent Sherif Bakr states without hesitation: “Arabic publishers either do not know how or do not want to work together, even if, hypothetically speaking, they were trying to join forces against their governments!” Because of this, the Egyptians we spoke to, all of whom were contacted through Sherif, tended to speak of specific instances, personal anecdotes and individual feelings which they often defined as representative of the overall situation. The impression given is that Egyptian book production is rich, but that access to books is still problematic.

Not only are books still an expensive market good for Egyptians but, Sherif suggests, buyers are more willing to buy a book which will help them save money in other areas. “For example, since computer courses are more expensive than the textbook, the text sells well.” Nevertheless, some fads fly in the face of these savvy little calculations à la homo oeconomicus. For example, in 2008, “bloggers books” — books stemming from blogs — were flying off the shelves. In one of them, I want to get Married, Ghada Abdel Aal spins hilarious tales of her doomed courtships and romantic woes. It was reprinted six times in barely 18 months before being adapted for television. But like all fads, it is difficult to say whether bloggers books have a promising future ahead of them (and only the latter will tell whether I was right in believing that this would turn out to be a passing fad).

Generally, titles reflecting Egyptian identity or daily life also appear to attract a large readership. Heba Salama, the publisher at Book House, had the ingenious idea of creating a book on Islamic headscarf fashion: “I wanted to show that, even while wearing  a headscarf, we can be pretty and creative. So it’s a coffee table book with explanations and photos of different ways to tie a headscarf”. The book has even been translated into German, benefiting from a popular fashion show when it was released at the 2010 Frankfurt Book Fair! Along more traditional lines, a book of short stories entitled Koshary (the name of an Egyptian dish made of rice, lentils, chickpeas and macaroni topped with a famous sauce of tomatoes and fried onions) moved 6,000 copies, an unexpected success for this genre… but it did speak about Egyptian daily life and identity, after all. QED?

In part two of this trio, we will look at alternative projects, copyright and the ever-present question of the distribution network…

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