The Cultural Club at Press House holds a symposium on the topic of  " Arabic Novel and Role of  Publisher in Support and Market for it"

The Cultural Club holds in Press  House  - Palestine(BAS), on Tuesday evening, June 9, 2020, a symposium on the topic of  " Arabic Novel and Role of  Publisher in Support and Market for it"" in the presence of a group of Palestinian, Arab and youth writers.

The facilitator of the meeting, writer, and journalist Mr. Yousri Al-Ghoul, welcomed the audience, indicating the importance of talking about the publishing crisis and the obstacles facing both the writer and the publisher.

Jordanian novelist Jalal Burgess confirmed through a Skype call that the Arab publisher contributed to the promotion of the Western novel against Arabic one, as a result of the lack of interest and support of official institutions of Arabic literature, and the reader's interest in translated works. However, he did not deny the existence of ancient Arabic literature, and a novel at the same level of Western literature today, especially after the many Arab novel awards.

Burgess added that the Arabic novel today is progressing strongly, but it needs a real translation movement in order to get out into the world with new voices and languages.

From her part, Syrian artist and novelist Lubna Yasin, who lives in Sweden, introduced the Arabic novel in the West after speaking about the writer's ambition and passion for reaching to the top, confirmed that she, like other novelists and novelists, is trying to create an Arab cultural situation in non-Arab countries, especially since her work has won many Arab and international awards.

At another side, an agent of Dar Al Shorouk for Publishing Adly Nazzal, he talked about the concerns of publishers and their deteriorating situation due to the circumstances of the occupation and siege, as people refrained from buying books because of the hard economic situation, as well as institutions that no longer buy books, and many publishing houses are in bankruptcy or high indebtedness.

Nazzal noted the official role of governments, which is no longer exsited at the required level in recent times, through the ways in which they fed schools and government sectors with literary novels at the local level, confirmed the lack of support of ministries for local publishing houses, which keeps depression of the Palestinian narrative.

The meeting concluded with the opening of questions and participations in which participants felt that new mechanisms must be developed, in order to enable publishing houses to embrace Palestinian works, and those digital libraries must be activated to facilitate free access to books, and others noted that it was the prevailing situation that is causing a decline in the role of the Palestinian novel, in the absence of the author and his novels, which may lead him not to write again