Frankfurt Book Fair To Highlight Arab States

Twenty two Arab countries are seeking to be selected as the guest region at next year's Frankfurt Book Fair. Each year, the world's largest publishing trade fair selects the book market of a single country or region as a focal point of the fall event. A spokesman for the fair said the deal would likely be finalized in March.

He said the Frankfurt Book Fair wants to establish a literary dialogue with the Arab states, which include Egypt, Algeria, Iraq and Kuwait among others. “We want to make sure that we’re not just talking about these countries, rather with them,” Book Fair spokesperson Holger Ehling said.

Ehling said Arabic countries had an extraordinary amount of literature to offer the Western world. Since the 1990s, several Arabic writers have been translated into German, including Moroccan writer Tahur Ben Jellon who wrote Papa was ist ein Fremder (Daddy, what is a foreigner?).