Atlantic Signs Up Arabic Booker Winner

The Bookseller announces that Atlantic has signed world English rights to Azazil by Youssef Ziedan,

Voices from Around the World: Translation Tidbits

A slightly random post that, as a snapshot, reflects the diversity and confluences of world literature and your opportunity to get involved in it!

Monica Carter of Salonica, the "virtual salon dedicated to promoting international literature," has put out a call for unpublished translations for a new digital literary journal, E.Lire.

Three Percent have updated the design of their site -- and also their translation database, with the first installment of news for 2009.

If you're in London, there's a chance to meet writers from the UK, India and beyond at the PEN Literary Café at the London Book Fair. Over in New York, you can catch writers from around the world at the PEN World Voices festival.

And a future translation... Maya Jaggi meets Yousef Ziedan and discusses the international impact of the IPAF.

Abu Dhabi Gets Book

Covering the Abu Dhabi book fair, the Khaleej Times notes a common problem - book sales dropping due to other distractions - and hopes that the fair, symbolised by the Arabic Booker, can bring readers back.

Diverting attention of the youth from the TV and computer screens to books may seem difficult but not an impossible goal. After all, this is the land of Scheherazade and the tales of Thousand and One Nights.

They also report that this year's winner Youssef Ziedan used the prize ceremony to promote religious harmony.

Three Percent have a full report on the festivities, the book fair itself reports a first: RAYA are the first literary agency to take a stall at the fair. RAYA have ten Arabic authors under contract, including Khaled Khalifa who was in the running for the Arabic Booker last year with the brilliantly-titled In Praise of Hatred.

Victory for the Devil: Azazel takes Arabic Booker

Described by the Coptic Church as "the Arabic version of The Da Vinci Code" and by its author, Youssef Ziedan, as "a philosophical novel written with blood, sweat and tears," Azazel (Beelzebub) carried off the $50, 000 top award in the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. The National has a full report on the prize-giving. Trailing clouds of controversy -- as well as the promise of Dan Brown-style mystery (although the author hotly denies the comparison) -- Beelzebub sounds like it could be a huge hit once the English translation is released. According to Gulf News, Ziedan is now "hopeful that the book will earn him a Nobel prize for literature next year," which sounds less astonishing when you realise that Azazel is Ziedan's fifty-fourth book, a crowning achievement bringing together his academic work on Islamic philosophy and history of medicine, as well as his work as the Director of the Manuscript Centre at the Library of Alexandria. He has certainly galvanised attention to Arabic literature, with the prize even rating a mention in the New Yorker books blog.