Abu Dhabi International Book Fair and KITAB get busy with the 60th Frankfurt Book Fair

For KITAB the day began with the Rights Subsidy story being showcased by The Bookseller highlighting the focus on the $1000 rights subsidy being announced by KITAB.

This of course created quite a positive buzz amongst the various publishers and saw host of enquirers at the ADIBF stand.

KITAB and ADACH hosted a range of events with the FBF as the background and some of these were the Business Breakfast Magreb which witnessed keen professional audience both from the International world.

The speaker Haissam Fadel from The Arab Cultural Center in Morocco articulately conveyed to the audience facts and figures about different book markets of the world as well as shared some crucial statistical information on the number of publishers and possibly book shops, the number of titles published, the distribution situation, rights bought sand sold, and a description of the market in general.

Most importantly he spoke about what sells well, what does not sell and where can foreign publishers come with their products and how is the Educational market structured.

Also a part of the opening day's events was Teatime with the ADIBF and KITAB.

The panel consisted of Seth Rosso of Scholastic Publishers US, Mr Jumaa Al Qubaisi, Director of the National Library and ADIBF and was chaired by Claudia Kaiser, General Manager of KITAB - the joint venture company between Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage and the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The panel addressed business opportunities in the Arab World. Seth spoke about the nature how to make the most the ADIBF and about culrural sensitivity and how the wasy toconduct busienss in the Arab world was keeping all contacts first hand and giving it that personal touch - so being present at such fair was a necessity.

Also the fact that such fairs were essentail aopportunities for networking.

Seth went on to add that the ADIBF was no doubt the most beautiful fair in the world.

Mr Jumaa spoke about the commitment from HHSheikh Mohammad bin Zayed al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and his generous offer of Dhs3m which will hopefully see an increase in 2009.

The panel spoke about commitment to education in UAE and keeping it at the forefront as that was no doubt the agenda for the government as well as the organiser of the ADIBF.

Hence 2009 will obviously have the focus on Education Publishing and a reinforcement of this commitment is the 2-day dedicated educational conference during the 2009 ADIBF dedicated to the Heads of School, government policy makers as well as the teachers.

The conference will allow the educational publishers an opportunity to meet the decision makers and end users and have the forum to have a one-to-one discussion with them.

Claudia Kaiser also highlighted the audience of efforts that are underway by KITAB for book distribution and offering the publishers an online catague very soon.

Day 3 saw an extremely interested initiative, Arab Translation Projects Today bieng discussed at by a panel consisting of the representatives from the Kalima project (a translation initiative by ADACH), Tarjem (an initiative from Dubai) as well as representatives from the National Center for Translation in Cairo.

The panel explored the need in today's market for translating books in to Arabic.

The panel was moderator by Edward Nawodka of Publishers Weekly and saw many interesting thoughts being shared amongst the newer translation initiatives and the more experienced translation center colleagues from Cairo.

Kalima, aims to build new horizons and build bridges in different culture by translating international titles in to Arabic.

Some Emirati writers' works are also being translated in to German and this initiatives assists in raising awareness between different cultures and creating appreciation of each others literature and values.

100 titles have been selected by Kalima and 40 have already been translated.

United Arab Emirates hopes to translate nearly 500 titles in a passage of 2 years.

There are also talks of establising training programmes for translators enabling quality translation work and to build a strong network.

Literature doesnt necessarily come to mind when one talks about UAE as the atthe forefront is the booming economy and real estate industry but the close of day 3 saw a panel discussion on Writing in the UAE with panelists like Dr Leslie Tramontini, Mohammad Al Shehhi from ADACH and was chaired by Stefan Weidner of Fikrun wa Fann.

The discussionw as organised by KITAB in cooperation with QALAM (another ADACH initiative) and LISAN.

The panel opened a fascinating view into the literary life in the UAE and introduced the Abu Dhabi based project called Qalam (meaning pen in Arabic) which was created to promote young Emirati authors.

So end of day 3 saw an immense increase in traffic at the ADIBF stand and registration for the 2009 Fair, where key figures like Henning Mankell, Amitav Ghosh, Assia Djebar, Elias Khoury and Abdo Wazen amongst others will be attending and sharing their views with the keen visitors.

The ADIBF will continue its activities like Reading Promoiton, Book Crossing while adding new feathers to its cap by introducing the Antiquarian Fair, Cookbook Show (where there will be live demoistrations by celebritz chefs like Chef Ramzi from Lebanon as well as chefs from Malaysia and Morocco), Educational Conference and the already popular Childrenäs Corner, KITAB Sofa and Sheikh Zayed Book Award as well as Women in Publishing Industry.

The Hay Festival will present its literary programme for Beirut World Book Capital international literary scene. This is just a window into the rrange and facetted events and activities planned at the ADIBF in 2009.