30 September 2004

FRANKFURT- This year's Frankfurt Book Fair ( 6-10 October) will feature a bold attempt by Arab nations to impress the German public, especially intellectuals, with a positive view of Arab culture.

The annual fair is the world's main marketplace for translation and reprint rights. Top authors are introduced to the publishers who effectively decide during the fair what will appear in the world's bookshops the following year.

Fair organizers traditionally appoint a guest of honour, a nation invited to send a whole phalanx of leading authors. This year, 17 of the 22 Arab League members will enjoy this honour status jointly.

The Arab nations will send to the fair 200 authors, artists and political figures in the hope that their encounters with US, German, French and Asian publishing executives will lead to book deals.

Business visitors, who usually arrive well before the Fair to cut deals, never pay much attention to the accompanying culture programme. They are too busy. But in a country that still respects "high culture", the programme is a way rousing German interest.

The guest of honour can also count on favourable interviews on German radio and a respectful hearing at German literary readings.

At a time when Germans, like other westerners, often think "terrorist" when they hear the word Arab, it will be a major challenge to revive dialogue between the Orient and Occident.

The fair's general manager, Volker Neumann, says the Arab World is the most sensitive guest of honour the Frankfurt Fair has ever had. Observers believe there has never been such a broad presentation of the riches of Arab intellectual life in Germany before.

The initiative came from the Arab League. Its secretary general, Amre Mussa, believes the book fair is the ideal forum to get across the message that the Islamic world is more than just brutal fanatics.

There were feuds and forecasts of failure within the League of Arab States, but most agreed to come on board.

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