Cairo publisher and bookseller Ahmed Rashad says the loss of book fairs and bookstore closures during the pandemic makes the digital transformation more urgent than ever.

A lost novelist, ‘her whispering voice, fleeing depression,’ led this Egyptian poet to one of the biggest literary prizes in the world.

On the IPAF 2019 longlist for ‘Women of the Five Senses,’ Jordanian aeronautical engineer and author Jalal Barjas wins this year for his novel ‘Notebooks of the Bookseller.’

From copyright to censorship, taxes, custom duties, the need for digital acceleration and literacy, Rashad surveys the conditions in which Arab-world publishers are working.

Moving its full guest of honor program to 2022, Germany is at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair this year with digital programming and a German collective stand.

The cultural program at this year’s fair, curated by the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, features a strong roster of writers from the Arab world.

Arabic translators Marilyn Booth, Michael Cooperson, and Hamed Al Ghaithi discussed the Arabic language, questions of fidelity to a text, and handling ambiguous passages.