The Gateway Trust is consulting on a project to establish a non-profit literary agency for Arabic-speaking and other predominantly Muslim countries. This would be the first such institution in the Muslim world and if successful would give a much-needed boost to writing and publishing.

The task of a literary agent is to introduce publishers to new authors and potential new books; provide advice to authors on how to get published, and provide them with editorial and marketing support.

The majority of well-known writers in developed countries are represented by literary agencies. Literary agents are an important catalyst for the book industry. Without them, the European-language publishing world would be much smaller than it is.

It is well known that predominantly Muslim countries are among the world’s lowest producers of knowledge (particularly books and research-based publications); despite the fact that many are classed as upper and middle-income countries. One reason for this (not widely known) is the absence of literary agencies.

This is what The Gateway Trust is aiming to remedy.

A literary agency for predominantly Muslim countries would catalyse the production of more books from Western languages into Arabic, Urdu and other languages by matching potential authors and publishers in the Muslim world to publishers in Europe and North America. It would also sensitize publishers in Europe and North America to influential new books (and their publishers), which could be potential candidates for translation from Arabic.

The Gateway Trust helped to organize a two-day seminar on Arabic/English translation in partnership with Arts Council England, the British Council and the Ministry of Culture, Syria. The seminar was aimed at exploring challenges and opportunities in the exchange of information, ideas, distribution and publishing of Arabic writing into English and English into Arabic.

Hosted by the Ministry of Culture in Damascus, the seminar took place on 22 and 23 March. It was attended by writers, translators, publishers and government officials from the UK and the Middle East.

The programme included a series of discussions and debates focusing on a range of issues, such as the needs of the Arab market, copyright in the Arab world, censorship, the needs of writers, and how to break into mainstream publishing in the UK.

For a copy of the seminar report, write to Ehsan Masood on EhsanMasood@aol.com.

The Gateway Trust welcomes new members to its board of trustees and International Advisory Group.

Jamal Khashoggi, former editor of Saudi Arabia's daily broadsheet newspapers 'Arab News' and 'Al-Watan' and Robert Lamb, founder of Television Trust for the Environment and producer of the BBC’s 'Earth Report', have joined as trustees.

The Gateway Trust’s International Advisory Group now also includes Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and founder of the OIC International Centre for Research in Islamic History, Art and Culture, based in Istanbul. Other new members are Julia Marton-Lefevre, Rector of the University for Peace in Costa Rica and Mohammed Hassan, Executive Director of the Academy of Sciences for the the Developing World (TWAS), based in Trieste.

Niall Murphy stepped down as a trustee in May along with Director Tanya Murphy. Niall and Tanya helped to lay a solid foundation for the trust and the board would like to extend their deep appreciation for their hard work and dedication at a crucial time for the organization.

The new Project Director is the journalist Ehsan Masood.

The Gateway Trust has commissioned a report on what people in Arab, Muslim and Western countries are reading about each other. The report, entitled ‘Do You Read Me’, is expected to be published in the winter of 2005. Its focus will be on non-fiction publishing.

The report will be based on interviews with readers, authors and publishers in different countries, with a focus on Canada, Egypt, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom.

It will explore the state of translations from English into Arabic and other languages spoken in Muslim countries; as well as the extent to which indigenous authors from these countries are being published outside their regions. It will also establish the kinds of books on Arab and Muslim themes that are currently available to the non-specialist reader in English.

The report was commissioned partly in response to the 2003 Arab Human Development Report, ‘Building a Knowledge Society’, which highlighted, in particular, the desperate state of Arab book publishing and the low quantity of translations from European languages into Arabic.

“There is little detailed publicly-accessible information on publishing in -- and about -- Arabic-speaking and Muslim countries,” says Ehsan Masood, The Gateway Trust’s Project Director. ‘Do You Read Me’ will hopefully build on this thin body of knowledge and also draw attention to the needs and challenges faced by non-fiction authors and publishers in Arab and predominantly Muslim countries.”