7/8/2019 The unlikely rise of book fairs in the Gulf - The red ink and the black https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2019/07/04/the-unlikely-rise-of-book-fairs-in-the-gulf?cid1=cust/dailypicks/n/bl/n/2019075n/owned/n/n/dailypicks/n/n/N… 1/6 The red ink and the black The unlikely rise of book fairs in the Gulf Can literary culture thrive in the absence of free expression? P Jul 4th 2019 | DUBAI AND KUWAIT CITY Print edition | Books and arts erhaps only in the Middle East do the censors get their own stand at book fairs—as they did at last year’s jamboree in Kuwait. Outside, a frustrated local artist installed a mock cemetery of banned works, with hundreds of titles inscribed on headstones. Over the past ve years the information ministry has banned more than 4,000 books, from Dostoevsky to Subscribe Welcome
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7/8/2019 The unlikely rise of book fairs in the Gulf - The red ink
and the black
https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2019/07/04/the-unlikely-rise-of-book-fairs-in-the-gulf?cid1=cust/dailypicks/n/bl/n/2019075n/owned/n/n/dailypicks/n/n/N… 1/6
The unlikely rise of book fairs in the Gulf
Can literary culture thrive in the absence of free expression?
P
Print edition | Books and arts
erhaps only in the Middle East do the censors get their own stand at book fairs—as they did at last year’s jamboree in
Kuwait. Outside, a frustrated local artist installed a mock cemetery of banned works, with hundreds of titles inscribed
on headstones. Over the past ve years the information ministry has banned more than 4,000 books, from Dostoevsky to
Subscribe Welcome
https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2019/07/04/the-unlikely-rise-of-book-fairs-in-the-gulf?cid1=cust/dailypicks/n/bl/n/2019075n/owned/n/n/dailypicks/n/n/N… 2/6
“Children of Gebelawi”, published in 1959 by the Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arab to win the Nobel prize for
literature. The cemetery protest, too, was quickly censored. The rumpus encapsulated the trick that several Gulf states are
trying to pull o. They want to become literary beacons, even as they restrict freedom of speech.
Arabs have an old saying: “Cairo writes, Beirut publishes, Baghdad reads.” The book fair in Cairo, the Middle East’s oldest, has
just celebrated its 50th anniversary. Each year it draws more than 2m people to stalls packed with titles from publishers
across the Arab world. But the Gulf states are now establishing themselves as stops on the literary circuit, too. Ten years ago
few would have heard of the book fair in Sharjah, one of the lesser-known parts of the United Arab Emirates (uae). Today it
attracts 2.3m visitors a year, double Sharjah’s population. Abu Dhabi, Doha, Manama, Riyadh—all are transforming from
sleepy trade fairs to popular events.
There are strong commercial incentives for publishers to cater to the six members of the Gulf Co-operation Council (gcc).
Though they make up just 10% of the Arab world’s population, they have its highest literacy rates. More than 90% of gcc
citizens can read, compared with less than 75% in countries such as Egypt and Morocco. Exactly how much they do read is
the subject of more speculation than research. A study in 2016, conducted by a government-run foundation in Dubai,
suggested that Emiratis read for 51 hours each year and consume 24 books apiece. That would seem to make them either
extremely fast readers or dishonest ones.
Still, the book market in the Gulf is certainly big. Saudi Arabia’s alone is thought to be worth 5bn rials ($1.3bn) a year.
Residents of oil- and gas-rich emirates have more to spend on literature than other Arabs. The market in the uaeis estimated
at $233m, larger than similar-sized European countries like Hungary or Portugal. Egypt has ten times more people than the
uae, but its publishers take in 23% less.
The fairs appeal to governments as well. In a region with a dearth of public space, they are a diversion for residents and a
potential draw for tourists, an alternative to the sun-and-shopping model that long dened glitzy cities like Dubai. The
tourism industry has “been focused on entertainment, people who don’t attend a concert, don’t open a book”, says Mai al-
Khalifa, Bahrain’s culture minister. Authorities also hope to nurture a growing coterie of local novelists. This year Sharjah
launched a separate fair to showcase more than 1,000 books by Emirati authors. At its main festival it gives an annual award
for the best Arabic-language novel. In 2017 this went to Abdullah al-Busais, a Kuwaiti writer, for his book “The Taste of the
Wolf”, a rumination on matters of violence and vengeance that loom large in Arab societies.
And books are only part of the story. Stable and wealthy, the Gulf states are already the centre of political and economic
power in the Middle East. They are now spending billions to become cultural powerhouses. Qatar and the uaehost the
largest Arabic satellite-news channels. Gulf production houses are making inroads in entertainment programming. The uae
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has branches of the Louvre and the Guggenheim; Qatar features a gleaming palace of Islamic art, designed by the late I.M.
Pei.
There is a glitch, however: politics. Visitors to the Louvre in Abu Dhabi are given a tour through 8,000 years of human
history, with an upbeat message of progress and optimism—but little that is challenging. The same goes for the Riyadh book
fair, which is less a festival of intellectual freedom than a showcase for ocial policy. Last year’s event, held six months
after the kingdom announced that women would be allowed to drive, had a booth where female visitors could try their hand
at a simulated steering wheel. In previous years exhibits extolled mega-projects like Neom, a futuristic $500bn planned city,
and the bravery of Saudi soldiers in Yemen.
Censorship is a problem across the Arab world. But curious readers can nd plenty of edgy works in Cairo’s Ezbekiya market
or the shops on Beirut’s Hamra Street. That is less true in the Gulf. Walk through a bookstore in Dubai’s Marina Mall and you
will nd shelves lled with business and self-help guides. An entire display is devoted to books by Dubai’s ruler (available in
Arabic and ve foreign languages). There is almost nothing about current aairs.
A kind of freedom
The fairs are a bit more open—yet they too are circumscribed by inconsistent censorship that drives authors and publishers
to distraction. In 2014 Saudi authorities conscated the works of Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet, which it
labelled “blasphemous” (Darwish was an ardent secularist). He is no longer forbidden; instead the authorities are on the
lookout for anything that might expose citizens to subversive politics. In Riyadh last year they closed a stall that sold books
“sympathetic” to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group banned in Saudi Arabia.
Governments deny any contradiction in all of this. “You have freedom of speech, as long as your speech is moderate,” says
an Emirati ocial. That, of course, is an arbitrary and subjective distinction. Kuwait is the most open of the Gulf states, with
a raucous parliament and vibrant print media; all the same, last year Kuwaiti intellectuals started leaking memos from the
information ministry, which make for darkly funny reading. Censors do not appear to read all the books they ban—no
surprise, since they blacklist about two per day. Instead they just look for keywords. A lone reference to “angels” can merit a
crackdown on blasphemy grounds.
So can the word “pee”, which, ironically, is thought to be the reason Mr Busais’s award-winning novel is banned in his home
country. It is another telling example of a paradox taking hold across the Gulf. From Jeddah to Sharjah, governments have
never done more to promote culture—and yet, artists and writers agree, the cultural climate has never been worse.
This article appeared in the Books and arts section of the print edition under the headline "The red ink and the black"
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https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2019/07/04/the-unlikely-rise-of-book-fairs-in-the-gulf?cid1=cust/dailypicks/n/bl/n/2019075n/owned/n/n/dailypicks/n/n/N… 1/6
The unlikely rise of book fairs in the Gulf
Can literary culture thrive in the absence of free expression?
P
Print edition | Books and arts
erhaps only in the Middle East do the censors get their own stand at book fairs—as they did at last year’s jamboree in
Kuwait. Outside, a frustrated local artist installed a mock cemetery of banned works, with hundreds of titles inscribed
on headstones. Over the past ve years the information ministry has banned more than 4,000 books, from Dostoevsky to
Subscribe Welcome
https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2019/07/04/the-unlikely-rise-of-book-fairs-in-the-gulf?cid1=cust/dailypicks/n/bl/n/2019075n/owned/n/n/dailypicks/n/n/N… 2/6
“Children of Gebelawi”, published in 1959 by the Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arab to win the Nobel prize for
literature. The cemetery protest, too, was quickly censored. The rumpus encapsulated the trick that several Gulf states are
trying to pull o. They want to become literary beacons, even as they restrict freedom of speech.
Arabs have an old saying: “Cairo writes, Beirut publishes, Baghdad reads.” The book fair in Cairo, the Middle East’s oldest, has
just celebrated its 50th anniversary. Each year it draws more than 2m people to stalls packed with titles from publishers
across the Arab world. But the Gulf states are now establishing themselves as stops on the literary circuit, too. Ten years ago
few would have heard of the book fair in Sharjah, one of the lesser-known parts of the United Arab Emirates (uae). Today it
attracts 2.3m visitors a year, double Sharjah’s population. Abu Dhabi, Doha, Manama, Riyadh—all are transforming from
sleepy trade fairs to popular events.
There are strong commercial incentives for publishers to cater to the six members of the Gulf Co-operation Council (gcc).
Though they make up just 10% of the Arab world’s population, they have its highest literacy rates. More than 90% of gcc
citizens can read, compared with less than 75% in countries such as Egypt and Morocco. Exactly how much they do read is
the subject of more speculation than research. A study in 2016, conducted by a government-run foundation in Dubai,
suggested that Emiratis read for 51 hours each year and consume 24 books apiece. That would seem to make them either
extremely fast readers or dishonest ones.
Still, the book market in the Gulf is certainly big. Saudi Arabia’s alone is thought to be worth 5bn rials ($1.3bn) a year.
Residents of oil- and gas-rich emirates have more to spend on literature than other Arabs. The market in the uaeis estimated
at $233m, larger than similar-sized European countries like Hungary or Portugal. Egypt has ten times more people than the
uae, but its publishers take in 23% less.
The fairs appeal to governments as well. In a region with a dearth of public space, they are a diversion for residents and a
potential draw for tourists, an alternative to the sun-and-shopping model that long dened glitzy cities like Dubai. The
tourism industry has “been focused on entertainment, people who don’t attend a concert, don’t open a book”, says Mai al-
Khalifa, Bahrain’s culture minister. Authorities also hope to nurture a growing coterie of local novelists. This year Sharjah
launched a separate fair to showcase more than 1,000 books by Emirati authors. At its main festival it gives an annual award
for the best Arabic-language novel. In 2017 this went to Abdullah al-Busais, a Kuwaiti writer, for his book “The Taste of the
Wolf”, a rumination on matters of violence and vengeance that loom large in Arab societies.
And books are only part of the story. Stable and wealthy, the Gulf states are already the centre of political and economic
power in the Middle East. They are now spending billions to become cultural powerhouses. Qatar and the uaehost the
largest Arabic satellite-news channels. Gulf production houses are making inroads in entertainment programming. The uae
ADVERTISING
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Print edition | Books and arts
Reuse this content
About The Economist
has branches of the Louvre and the Guggenheim; Qatar features a gleaming palace of Islamic art, designed by the late I.M.
Pei.
There is a glitch, however: politics. Visitors to the Louvre in Abu Dhabi are given a tour through 8,000 years of human
history, with an upbeat message of progress and optimism—but little that is challenging. The same goes for the Riyadh book
fair, which is less a festival of intellectual freedom than a showcase for ocial policy. Last year’s event, held six months
after the kingdom announced that women would be allowed to drive, had a booth where female visitors could try their hand
at a simulated steering wheel. In previous years exhibits extolled mega-projects like Neom, a futuristic $500bn planned city,
and the bravery of Saudi soldiers in Yemen.
Censorship is a problem across the Arab world. But curious readers can nd plenty of edgy works in Cairo’s Ezbekiya market
or the shops on Beirut’s Hamra Street. That is less true in the Gulf. Walk through a bookstore in Dubai’s Marina Mall and you
will nd shelves lled with business and self-help guides. An entire display is devoted to books by Dubai’s ruler (available in
Arabic and ve foreign languages). There is almost nothing about current aairs.
A kind of freedom
The fairs are a bit more open—yet they too are circumscribed by inconsistent censorship that drives authors and publishers
to distraction. In 2014 Saudi authorities conscated the works of Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet, which it
labelled “blasphemous” (Darwish was an ardent secularist). He is no longer forbidden; instead the authorities are on the
lookout for anything that might expose citizens to subversive politics. In Riyadh last year they closed a stall that sold books
“sympathetic” to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group banned in Saudi Arabia.
Governments deny any contradiction in all of this. “You have freedom of speech, as long as your speech is moderate,” says
an Emirati ocial. That, of course, is an arbitrary and subjective distinction. Kuwait is the most open of the Gulf states, with
a raucous parliament and vibrant print media; all the same, last year Kuwaiti intellectuals started leaking memos from the
information ministry, which make for darkly funny reading. Censors do not appear to read all the books they ban—no
surprise, since they blacklist about two per day. Instead they just look for keywords. A lone reference to “angels” can merit a
crackdown on blasphemy grounds.
So can the word “pee”, which, ironically, is thought to be the reason Mr Busais’s award-winning novel is banned in his home
country. It is another telling example of a paradox taking hold across the Gulf. From Jeddah to Sharjah, governments have
never done more to promote culture—and yet, artists and writers agree, the cultural climate has never been worse.
This article appeared in the Books and arts section of the print edition under the headline "The red ink and the black"
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Economist via print, online and our apps.
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Tune-up time
BMW tries to turn a corner—and loses its boss Re-engineering the German carmaker for the age of electric vehicles, self-driving cars and ride-sharing will take some doing
Farewell, Syriza
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