Cairo’s Kotob Khan Bookstore: A Literary Safe Place

Post from http://www.danieluk.net

Cairo’s Kotob Khan has become as much a gathering place for the community, as a bookstore. (Photo: Facebook)

Cairo’s Kotob Khan Bookstore does far more than merely sell books: it serves as a community center, a gathering place — and now a publisher as well.

By Dennis Abrams

At Your Middle East, Marcia Lynx Qualey looked at Cairo’s Kotob Khan Bookstore, founded by Karam Youssef not just to sell books, but to build a community.

As Youssef explained to Qualey, “It was my wish that there would be a place to take care of books, where a book – that sentient being – can feel safe.” And that in itself was the origin of the name. “A khan for books, or a motel for books, where books can rest on their long journey and start again on their eternal travels.”

“I did not inherit Kotob Khan,” she added. “Kotob Khan was for me an existential choice. And from the start, its inclination was toward Arab culture…The bookshop took as its role model the great libraries in human history, and for this reason selling books was not our main aim.”

Which means that the store is also a place for reading and research, as well as a cultural and social center. It hosts creative writing workshops, a monthly book forum, book signings, discussions, and movie screenings. “Kotob Khan has worked as a safe harbor for cultural groups,” she said, “and we welcome the wide spectrum of the Egyptian literary scene.”

And since the events of Arab Spring, it has become a place “where people can go to hear about their human and political rights through a series of lectures given by social critics, lawyers, journalists, MPs, and candidates for parliament.”

At its heart though, it remains a bookstore. And along with Arabic books, Youssef said, “we import a variety of books that carry enlightenment values to the Arabic-language reader, and specifically to the Egyptian reader. We take the side of books that serve these cultural aims: modern philosophy books, social critiques, the humanities, psychology, politics, economics, and literature.”

And if all that wasn’t enough, Youssef has also launched a publishing house that “leans towards young writers and their debuts,” along with the goal of launching “a serious translation movement through a group of the best Egyptian and Arab translators.”

She added, speaking about the problems inherent in both publishing and bookselling in the region:

“I want to say that the lack of a distribution database, which would contain all the details about bookshops and book prices in [the] region poses a huge difficulty for us and for any publisher who wants to sell into the region. Today, after the emergence of the eBook and its applications, and with a market that’s constantly changing both locally and internationally, we must look around and wonder about bookshop policies, publishing policies, and censorship and the role that the latter plays in importing books, whether Arab or non-Arab.”

The post Cairo’s Kotob Khan Bookstore: A Literary Safe Place appeared first on Publishing Perspectives.

Publishing Perspectives | RSS Feed

Cairo’s Kotob Khan Bookstore: A Literary Safe Place http://www.danieluk.net/news/cairos-kotob-khan-bookstore-a-literary-safe-place/ #Books, #Ebook, #Facebook, #Publishing, #PublishingHouse

The Holocaust and the Story of Greek Jews in Publishing

Post from http://www.danieluk.net

For generations, the story of the Greek Jews during the Holocaust was never told, but more recently willing publishers have tackled this important task.

By Evangelia Avloniti

If Holocaust memory made it into the Western cultural mainstream in the early 1980’s, in Greece it had to wait until the early to mid-90s in order to pass the threshold into historiography and mainstream publishing. According to Greek historian, Odette Varon-Vassard, one has to view this ten to fifteen year delay within the context of Greek post-war history and its particularities. “The memory of the Nazi occupation in Greece, the Resistance and the Greek civil-war remained virtually silent from the mid-1940s until the end of the military dictatorship (1967-1974),” she says. “It is only from 1974 onwards that a profusion of memoirs on the Resistance and the civil-war are published. The Greek civil-war entered academic discourse as late as 1995, whereas Greek collaborationism began to be researched and openly discussed only in 2000. The story of the Greek Jews was in a sense the fourth silence to be broken, as Greece had to deal with its deepest wounds first.”

Samis Graviilides, publisher at Gavriilides Publications, agrees and adds: “One has to see the story of the Greek Jews within the context and course of Greek history of which it forms an inextricable part.”

The 1980s

It is in the 1980s that we find the first Holocaust Greek-Jewish survivor memoirs in Greek. Berry Nahmia’s, A Cry for Tomorrow, (Kaktos, 1989) is notable among them not only for its beautiful prose but also because it was the first memoir to be published by a mainstream publisher and the first to come from outside the Thessaloniki Jewish community, in this case Kastoria. The book enjoyed several reprints and was translated into English in 2012 by Bloch Publishing in the US.

The 1990s

In the 1990s, Greek-Jewish survivor memoirs multiply and the first of them are prefaced, edited and annotated by Greek academic, Frangiski Abatzopoulou, whose meticulous work lends them a credibility that aides their critical and public reception significantly.

Erika Kunio-Amariglo’s memoir, titled From Thessaloniki to Auschwitz and back: Memories of a Survivor from Thessaloniki, published in 1995 by Paratiritis in Thessaloniki (and republished in 2006 by Ianos) and edited by Abatzopoulou was according to Varon-Vassard instrumental in introducing the story of the Greek Jews internationally as it was translated into German, English and French, among other languages. “(This book) helped remind Western Europeans that the Nazi persecution was not limited to Central and Eastern Europe but reached our sunny islands and shores too. The reason I am mentioning this is that very often this fact goes unmentioned or is undermined in foreign editions, conferences and museums … which is disproportionate to the breadth and importance of the persecution of the Greek Jews.” Varon-Vassard attributes this to the Sephardic heritage of Greek Jews “as in the conscience of European Jews the “Holocaust” concerns mostly Central and Eastern European countries which is of course understandable, given the grand scale of the atrocities committed there … That is why the translation of Greek-Jewish memoirs is so important.”

Another important Greek memoir published around that time by Hestia Publishers, Greece’s oldest publishing house, is Errikos Sevilias’, Athens-Auschwitz (1995).

It is in 1990 in Thessaloniki that the Society for the Study of Greek Jewry is established. For the next ten years the Society will organize conferences and symposiums in Thessaloniki and Athens, the annals of which will be published by mainstream publishers like Gavriilides as early as 1995. Gradually but steadily the work of Primo Levi is translated into Greek by Agra Publications, and Mark Mazower’s work – which deals extensively with the story of the Greek Jews — is introduced to the Greek public by Alexandria Publications. In 1998 Frangiski Abatzopoulou publishes her magnum opus, The Persecution of the Other: The Image of the Jew in Literature: Issues of History and Fiction, (Themelio, 1998) which paves the way for further academic study in the field.

The 2000s Through Today

Pinhas’ “A Narrative of Evil”

The 2000s witness an explosion of interest in the Holocaust and the story of the Greek Jews. Even though fewer survivor memoirs are published from 2000 onwards as the majority of survivors are well into their eighth decade, they enjoy more widespread popularity than in previous decades. Nata Osmo Gatenio’s memoir, From Corfu to Birkenau and on to Jerusalem: The story of a woman from Corfu (Gavriilides, 2005) is unique among them as it is the only memoir to have come from the Jewish community in Corfu. Another interesting and recent example is Lisa Pinhas’ gripping account of the camps, A Narrative of Evil, (2014) which was published into Greek and English by the Jewish Museum of Greece. A French edition is forthcoming under the auspices of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah in Paris with an introduction by Odette Varon-Vassard.

The Holocaust and the Story of the Greek Jews in Mainstream Publishing in the 2000s

The rise of books on the Holocaust and the story of the Greek Jews in mainstream publishing in the new millennium owe a lot to Polis Editions and its publisher, Nikos Gionis. Polis’ interest in those topics began in 1998 with the publication of the collective volume, Jewish History and Memory, with essays by renowned psychoanalyst, Jacques Hassoun and respected Greek academics like Rika Benveniste, among others. Subsequently a wealth of Holocaust related books are translated into Greek, such as Annete Wieviorka’s seminal work, Auschwitz, 60 ans après in 2006 and Saul Friendlander’s magnum opus, Nazi Germany and The Jews in 2013. There have also been important books in the field of Greek Holocaust studies such as Rika Benveniste’s, Those who Survived: Resistance, Deportation, Return: Thessaloniki Jews in the 1940s, published in 2014, and books by a new generation of Greek historians like Anna Maria Droumbouki whose Monuments of Oblivion, (2014) deals with, among other things, the relations between Greek Christians and Greek Jews in the 1940s and Holocaust Monuments in Greece.

Other notable books in the field of Greek Holocaust studies published by respected mainstream publishers in the new millennium are Giorgos Margaritis’, Unwanted Compatriots: Elements on the Destruction of the Minorities of Greece (Vivliorama, 2005) which deals with Greek anti-Semitism, Odette Varon-Vassard’s, The Emergence of a Difficult Memory: Essays on the Jewish Genocide (Hestia, 2013, 2nd ed.), Rena Molho’s, The Jews of Thessaloniki: 1856-1917, (Themelio, 2001 – Patakis 2014), and two books by Karina Lampsa and Yakov Schiby: Life Once Again: The Flight of the Greek Jews to Palestine, 1945-1948 (Alexandria Publications, 2010) and The Rescue: The world’s silence, the resistance in the ghettos and the camps, the Greek Jews during the Occupation years (Kapon Editions, 2012).

Last but not least, Odette Varon-Vassard’s book on the history and memory of the Shoah in Greece, recently commissioned by Hestia Publishers, is forthcoming.

Eva Karaitidi, publisher at Hestia, where the works of Aharon Appelfeld, Günther Anders and Pierre – André Taguieff, among others are published, says of her interest in the (Greek) Holocaust: “I have a personal obsession with the story of the Jews in the Third Reich. I have read passionately on the subject, and have seen countless films from the 80s until today. This terrible historical moment of the 20th century forms part of the significant and weighty presence of Judaism in the western Christian world, for those of us raised in this context. It is also connected to my admiration for the dynamic face of contemporary Israel. But it is mainly the uprooting and nightmare of the millions of Jews in WWII that feeds my thought.”

The post The Holocaust and the Story of Greek Jews in Publishing appeared first on Publishing Perspectives.

Publishing Perspectives | RSS Feed

The Holocaust and the Story of Greek Jews in Publishing http://www.danieluk.net/news/the-holocaust-and-the-story-of-greek-jews-in-publishing/ #Books, #Publishing, #PublishingHouse, #Related, #World

Oetinger34, Community-Based Publishing Platform, To Release First Titles

Post from http://www.danieluk.net

This July, the first titles will appear from Oetinger34, a creative platform for authors, illustrators and readers that was launched by German children’s publisher Oetinger in 2014.

By Ingrid Süßmann

Neobooks, Epubli, Books on Demand — German indie authors have a variety of self-publishing platforms to choose from, several of which follow the same business model. However, Oetinger — one of Germany’s largest children’s book publishers with titles such as Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren and Inkheart by Cornelia Funke — decided to take a different approach to self-publishing: in March 2014, they founded Oetinger34, a platform for creative collaboration among authors, illustrators, junior editors and readers.

Authors can post their projects to the Oetinger34 platform, which is still in beta, and apply to be matched up with freelance editors and illustrators. Book projects are open to feedback by the platform’s reader community of nearly 600 members (as of May 2015), and Oetinger’s editors review the books with the highest reader feedback for possible publication.

One of the titles now being published in this program is the series Kings & Fool, a mixture of fantasy and mystery, penned by young and aspiring authors Natalie Matt and Sila Matthes. The pair was coached by Bernhard Hennen, one of Germany’s most successful fantasy authors and mentor other to Oetinger34 authors. Like all forthcoming titles, the series will be sold as both print and digital books. More Oetinger34 titles can be found here.

When Oetinger34 entered the German publishing scene last year, Till Weitendorft, CEO of Oetinger, was quoted as saying: “Oetinger34 is a revolution and the first publishing house of this kind. Let others do the talking; we’re the ones changing the world.” Time (and sales figures) will tell if his vision for Oetinger34 turns out to be true.

The post Oetinger34, Community-Based Publishing Platform, To Release First Titles appeared first on Publishing Perspectives.

Publishing Perspectives | RSS Feed

Oetinger34, Community-Based Publishing Platform, To Release First Titles http://www.danieluk.net/news/oetinger34-community-based-publishing-platform-to-release-first-titles/ #Books, #Publishing, #PublishingHouse, #World

Russian Publishers Balk at Government Ebook Mandate

Post from http://www.danieluk.net

Russian publishers are fighting a government mandate that requires them to offer ebook editions of all their titles for a new national digital library.

By Eugene Gerden

Fearing lost sales and potential piracy, the Russian Book Chamber (RBC), the Russian association which unites the country’s leading book publishers, has opposed a state proposal to oblige publishers to produce electronic copies of their new books.

According to Pavel Zotov, Executive Director of RBC, this may even result in a collapse of the Russian publishing industry. “The Russian government has decided to save money on digitization. At the same time the problem also lies in the fact that Russia still has very poor legislation in the field of copyright. The provision of an electronic copy of each new book to NEL will result in its automatic launch into the market and huge losses of publishers.” 

The government plans to use such electronic copies for stocking the newly established National Electronic Library (NEL), which an electronic fund of federal, regional and municipal libraries as well as of the funds of academic and educational institutions, says Zotov.

At present the NEL only works a small share (no more than 10%) of all publications issued in the country, but has announced plans to increase this number dramatically.

Before there a mandatory production of electronic book copies is implemented, there is a need to design and instill a regulatory framework, say the publishers. 

In the meantime, according to a spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Culture, the government will buy copyright for the desired titles to make them available in the NEL. The rights purchases will cover a limited number of “checkouts,” and will be subject to renewal for additional fees.

According to Maxim Ryabyko, head of the legal department of Eksmo, Russia’s leading publishing house, the company opposes such an initiative because it limits publishers ability to protect their content from unauthorized proliferation. 

Microsoft to Help Digitize St. Petersburg’s Books

In the meantime, Microsoft has signed an agreement with the 197 libraries of the city of St. Petersburg to digitize collections and their transfer these to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, where they will be stored for a period of 100 years.

The project is estimated to be valued at some 50 million rubles (US $ 890,000), with potential for further investment.

According to Anton Zhandarov, head of IT sector of the Mayakovsky Library, one of Russia’s best known literary institutions, approximately 120,000 books — or 17% of the libraries holdings — have already been digitized. The resulting files are equivalent to one petabyte.

The volume of data that will be transferred on the platform each year will vary in the range of 100-500 terabytes.

According to Zhandarov, the Azure platform offers improved safety, security and affordability over other existing solutions. 

The transfer of Russian library books to the cloud became a pressing issue following a fire at the Library of the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences (INION) of Russian Academy of Sciences, which destroyed some 1.5 million books and historic documents.

The post Russian Publishers Balk at Government Ebook Mandate appeared first on Publishing Perspectives.

Publishing Perspectives | RSS Feed

Russian Publishers Balk at Government Ebook Mandate http://www.danieluk.net/news/russian-publishers-balk-at-government-ebook-mandate/ #Books, #Content, #Ebook, #Publishing, #PublishingHouse

PEN America Reports on Censorship in China

Post from http://www.danieluk.net

PEN America has issued a report on China’s book market entitled “Censorship and Conscience: Foreign Authors and the Challenge of Chinese Censorship.”

By Dennis Abrams

For China’s turn as Market Focus at this year’s BookExpo America, PEN America has issued a report focusing on China’s fast-growing book market. Entitled Censorship and Conscience: Foreign Authors and the Challenge of Chinese Censorship, it explores an under-explored dimension of China’s massive censorship machine: the censorship of some of the thousands of international titles published annually in China.

Some highlights:

Chinese demand for foreign books in translation is growing and has made China an increasingly important market for authors and publishers around the world. As book advances and royalties payments rise in China, more foreign authors will be drawn to the publishing market there. There are serious concerns about the kinds of compromises they may confront in the process, and the impact of these compromises on free expression. Yet little is known about the true scope of China’s censorship and the options available to foreign authors navigating the translation and publication process.

…

PEN’s research has found that in many instances, foreign authors – and their agents and publishers – do not have sufficient knowledge of the workings of Chinese censorship to do all they can to ensure that their books are not censored or to minimize censorship. Many have signed contracts that promise the preservation of the author’s original content but then leave the translation to the Chinese publisher and fail to vet the resulting copy, leaving their material vulnerable to undetected censorship. Some writers allow the details of their foreign rights agreements to be worked out by their agents or publishers, who may neither challenge cuts to the Chinese edition nor raise the matter with their client.

In many cases, the sensitive subject matter of books prevents them from even reaching the translation stage. Books like the S&M-themed Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James and American Dervish by Avad Akhtar have been licensed by Chinese publishers but have since had their contracts canceled or are now languishing in pre-publication limbo, out of recognition that their content will not pass muster with the censors. Nancy Wiese, vice president of subsidiary rights for Hachette Book Group, told PEN via email that American Dervish, which touches on Islam, extremism, and sexuality, “had been licensed but was canceled because the book was unable to pass the approval process.” Gray Tan, the founder of the Grayhawk Agency in Taiwan, sold the rights to Fifty Shades of Grey, but the Chinese publisher is still sitting on the book, unsure if it can ever be released in China.

Publishers who violate this censorship system face temporary business closure, permanent loss of their publishing license, and/or hefty fines. In June 2011, China forced state-run Zhuhai Publishing House to shut down after it published a memoir by Hong Kong newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai, an outspoken critic of the CCP.

According to Gray Tan, the big fear among Chinese publishers is that they will unknowingly be put on a government blacklist. ‘This means they will be watched more closely in the future,’ he said. No publishers in China are fully independent or free to publish what they wish. Even private publishers must find a state-approved partner in order to obtain the legally required International Standard Book Numbers, or ISBNs, that are only given to a limited number of state-run publishers. China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television controls the distribution in China of ISBNs, and publishers may see their supply cut dramatically if they publish controversial works. Such scrutiny and pressure could mean a slow commercial death for a publisher. These punishments are relatively rare because publishers are extremely careful. Publishing houses proactively excise sensitive words in, and sections of, books to avoid tripping the government censors’ wires.

To read the entire report, click here.

The post PEN America Reports on Censorship in China appeared first on Publishing Perspectives.

Publishing Perspectives | RSS Feed

PEN America Reports on Censorship in China http://www.danieluk.net/news/pen-america-reports-on-censorship-in-china/ #Books, #Content, #Publish, #Publishing, #PublishingHouse

The Global Perspective at PRH’s Hogarth Imprint

Post from http://www.danieluk.net

A selection of Recent Hogarth Titles

Penguin Random House imprint Hogarth is focuses on publishing high quality literary fiction told in voices from around the world, says editor Alexis Washam.

By Olivia Snaije

Hogarth’s Alexis Washam

Alexis Washam is a young U.S. editor who believes in foreign fiction. Executive Editor of Crown and Hogarth, last autumn she put her money where her mouth is by acquiring Catalan author Milena Busquets’ novel This Too Shall Pass (También esto pasará) for a mid six-figure deal the morning of the Frankfurt Book Fair.

“With Milena Busquets we got the translation on a Friday and by Monday we made a preemptive offer. American publishers are aggressive when they see something that has potential. We found it had a universal voice and we knew that it would be competitive and that it had been selling. We all loved it so we wanted to make an offer that we felt that was compelling and reflective of what we thought of the book,” said Washam during a recent visit to Barcelona where she met Busquets for the first time.

“If we feel passionate about a novel we feel that there’s no reason not to invest in it.”

Reviving an Imprint

Hogarth, the Crown imprint where Busquets will be published, was reestablished in 2012, a revival of the publishing house Leonard and Virginia Woolf founded in 1917. Hogarth US is in partnership with Chatto & Windus in the UK, however Harvill Secker in the UK, also under the Random House umbrella, will publish Busquets.

Washam said her interest in international fiction sparked when she first began her career at Penguin. “I worked in paperbacks and as a younger editor it was hard to get fiction, so I would look at international rights catalogues. One book I bought was The Slap [by Christos Tsiolkas]. This went on to become a major success. I started making connections like that. It was a perfect way to expand my international and translation list but also to look for new voices.”

At Hogarth, where 12 books a year are published, there are three editors, all of whom can acquire for both Hogarth and Crown; Washam also acquires trade paperback originals for Broadway Books.

“When we started Hogarth, we wanted to keep the tradition of publishing high quality literary fiction told in voices from around the world. English voices as well, but always with a global perspective.

“The US is opening up to international fiction. We’ve seen it in the past year with books like Knausgård’s “My Struggle” series and Elena Ferrante. Reaching back there was [Muriel Barbery’s] The Elegance of the Hedgehog and [Herman Koch’s] The Dinner. People are realizing that a good story is first and foremost what is important. American audiences are increasingly open to reading them,” said Washam.

Washam has bought books from countries such as the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Italy — last year she published Milan-based Marina Mander’s The First True Lie, but says there isn’t a specific country she’s interested in and that she is always looking to expand.

Where Hogarth Finds Its Leads

Agents and foreign rights directors are her main source for literature in translation and “it goes a long way to be able to read a full text,” comments Washam. Such was the case for Milena Busquets, whose agent, Anna Soler-Pont, had the short book translated in its entirety by Valerie Miles before sending it Washam’s way. Translators are not yet a source for Washam, as she hasn’t worked with them much, she added.

But, said Washam, “I’m always curious. I pay attention to what is happening in the world through travelling and fellowships. It’s good to hear what the news on the ground is.”

The books she is looking for must have a strong voice. Washam, who says she loves psychological suspense, published the US edition of The Dinner by Herman Koch. “It has elements of suspense and a plot that has an engine moving forward.”

Washam will be publishing Koch’s forthcoming Dear Mr. M in the US in May 2016. “It takes a singular and unreliable narrator and expands on that. It’s a mystery that unfolds over 20 years. It’s ambitious and satisfying.”

In Hogarth’s near future, Washam said, “We want to maintain our standards and publish the best writing we can find. Expanding our translation fiction list would be great but I don’t want to water down our small list either. All of our resources are dedicated to the quality. We want to turn unlikely books into bestsellers.”

The post The Global Perspective at PRH’s Hogarth Imprint appeared first on Publishing Perspectives.

Publishing Perspectives | RSS Feed

The Global Perspective at PRH’s Hogarth Imprint http://www.danieluk.net/news/the-global-perspective-at-prhs-hogarth-imprint/ #Books, #News, #Publish, #Publishing, #PublishingHouse