Very Cool, Very Useful

Thanks to Literary Saloon (Michael Orthofer is always on top of everything!) for pointing out the New Arabic Books site the British Council recently launched.

The paucity of info available about Arabic books has been a frequent complaint of many a publisher, so this site should make an immediate difference. The fiction section could use some better navigation, and it would be great if translators would post English samples, but whatever, there’s finally a fiction section would searching through for interesting titles. I guess my only other hope is that they develop some way of getting the word out when new info is added. (I can envision this becoming one of those sites I have bookmarked but infrequently check in on.)

In addition to fiction (which is what I naturally gravitate towards) there are sections on The People and Working With the Arabic World. Overall, kudos to the BC for putting this together. And launching it in conjunction with the London Book Fair.