NINE entrepreneurial young publishers from around the globe competed for the 5th annual British Council International Young Publishing Entrepreneur (IYPE) Award at the London Book Fair (LBF) held recently at the Earls' Court Exhibition Centre, London. The IYPE Award celebrates the creative and leadership abilities of young publishers (aged 25-35) from developing markets. Nine finalists from Argentina, Egypt, India, Lebanon, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, UAE and Yemen were selected by local juries as their national winners. One of the finalists was from Saudi Arabia: Thuraya Batterjee. Thuraya Batterjee is a co-founder and illustrator for Kadi and Ramadi, a young and successful children's publisher in Jeddah. She is pitching a children's picture book by Arwa Dayd Khomayyis. The book illustrates the annual festival of Eid, in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia, narrating it through the eyes of four-year-old boy named Sani. Searching for Eid in order to greet him with the beautiful card that he has prepared by himself, Sani slowly learns more about the festival and realizes the true nature of Eid. Around a world of tension and turmoil, from Ground Zero to Gaza and Baghdad, London Book Fair and the British Council deserve to be congratulated for staging such an eventful Arab World Book Fair with Arab writers, publishing houses and intellectuals. It has, no doubt, opened a great opportunity to enlarge understanding of the culture in a region of 300 million people stretching from Morocco to Syria and to contribute to dialogue through knowledge. It is rightly said by Juan Goytisolo, “The Arab world is like a patchwork. What applies in one country does not apply in another.” Books are nothing but the mirror through which the culture, values and lifestyle are reflected and the writers are the painters of that panorama. As a result, the Arab writers identify themselves with and share a literary language that has helped to unite them since before the time of the Qur'an. “Books are our culture; we are Arabs, we have our culture and values. This is an occasion to give and take,” said Mr. Mustafa of the Saudi Embassy stand at the Fair. The Saudi Embassy in London had a large stand at the Fair which concentrated on Saudi universities and their research publications. There was also a Seminar on “Panorama of Academic Research in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” in which Dr Sabah M Z Safi, Associate Professor of Linguistics at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, and Prof. Saad A Al-Bazei of the Department of English, College of Arts, King Saud University, participated. Dr. Safi presented a quick review of academic research in Saudi Arabia from its modest beginnings to its promising potential and the role that language plays in shaping their contribution to global knowledge. “Although steeped in tradition, Saudi Arabia is a rather young country. When the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932, education was not accessible to everyone, and it was limited to instruction at religious schools and mosques which often taught Islamic law and basic literacy skills,” said Dr. Safi and added, “In a little over two decades, universities were established in all the major cities around the Kingdom.” Speaking about the gender statistics in the educational institutions, Dr. Safi said, “Women and men had equal opportunity at education and received an equal stipend. Likewise faculty and staff had equal opportunity and equal pay – which I didn't appreciate until I joined Western institutions (as esteemed as University of Oxford) where I discovered this was a significant issue.” Speaking about the tremendous changes that have taken place in Saudi Arabia, Prof. Al-Bazei said, “Books that have until recently been banned are now on sale; institutions that used to be off limits for criticism in the media, such as the religious institutions, are no longer protected, at least not as before, and issues that have for long been taboos no longer enjoy such a status. Factors that led to the change are not limited to unprecedented exposure to the outside world, crucial as that proved to be.” __
