Publishers reaching across borders at Sharjah
Now in its 4th decade, the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) is the world’s third largest book fair, attracting hundreds of thousands of people. Earlier this month Upswell publisher Terri-ann White attended the SIBF’s Publishers Conference (2 to 4 November) and returned with an inspiring story.
This was my 6th in-person visit to the SIBF’s 15th Publishing Conference, a significant initiative by the Sharjah Book Authority that has attracted a growing number of participants each year. (During Covid, I dialled in for meetings.) This lively event is the most diverse international gathering I’ve participated in, with two serious days of pre-arranged appointment/pitch sessions followed by a day of seminar activities and an award-focused ceremony.
The driving force is Her Excellency Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, daughter of the ruler of the Kingdom of Sharjah, who is the first Arab woman to be appointed president of the International Publishers Association. Because she is a publishing professional in her own right, influential publishing people more often than not accept her invitation to participate. The event also has an annual theme, often couched in terms of advocacy, such as literacy programs, women in publishing initiatives, and national spotlights on new or developing markets.
It’s all about buying and selling rights, of course, but the added incentives include a translation grant pool totalling US$300,000 (A$460,000) competitively available for agreements made during the event, and a short-cut route to knowledge banks for those interested in conducting business within Arab and international markets.
After this year’s event, I came home with a poignant story. Back at the 2023 event, I met Volodymry Samoylenko from the Kyiv-based Hika publishing house, who took a particular interest in a couple of the 2024 books I pitched to him. He applied for translation grants for both of them: George Kouvaros’s Patrimonies: Essays on generational thinking and Brooke Boland’s Gulp Swallow: Essays on change. But he wasn’t at Sharjah last year, and frankly I thought the whole deal was off.
On Sunday, as I was sitting quietly at Sharjah, I had a tap on the shoulder and it was Volodymry with a small bundle of books: those two narrative nonfiction essay collections translated into Ukrainian and published in handsome editions. What an extraordinary thing it is to be making books during wartime – translating these two books, putting them into print and proudly presenting them to me.
It was a huge emotional moment for the two of us, and then for the authors when I shared this story with them. And it was a big reminder that while our responsibilities may overload us with work there are still moments of magic in publishing – moments when we can identify as working in a much larger arena.
The way we can share knowledge and share pleasure across the world in different languages and for such a range of reasons and results was made so tangible on this day in Sharjah. The photo shows the two of us with the finished books.
Many Australian publishers make the expected annual tours of Frankfurt and London fairs. In my years visiting Sharjah, I count four Australians, including me, in attendance. For the first couple of years, I was bombarded by agents from lacklustre, poorly focused, faux commercial publishing outlets from Middle East and Asian regions, but I soon cracked the code for accepting and rejecting worthwhile meeting invitations. That’s called getting to know people.
I’ve met publishers and agents I now see each year – at Sharjah, Doha and Chennai, just to name this year’s haul of my book market events. They certainly open me up to great conversations about the role of publishing books for social change and the pleasures involved in what we do with authors and their texts (as well as readers and their interests).
Tags: Sharjah
Category: Conferences Features
