JEDDAH, 4 April 2007 — Pursuing literary activities in the Kingdom is not an easy task. It’s not just the occasional outburst from people who don’t agree with the work or author at hand, or the need to have books approved for sale and distribution in the Kingdom. Many obstacles are simply financial in nature and often there lacks the financial backing to create literary or artistic events.
But on Sunday the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced that it would financially support the Jeddah Literary Club’s efforts to bring the annual International Book Fair to the city in November. There have been book fairs in the past, but they have not been consistent annual events.
JCCI Chairman Saleh Al-Turki met with club President Abdul Mohsen Al-Qahtani on Sunday. The two agreed that the club and the chamber would help put together a budget and organize business sponsorship. “It is crucial that the private sector support the club due to its small budget and limited resources,” said Al-Qahtani.
Jeddah’s literary club is one of a dozen located in the Kingdom’s large cities that are approved by the Ministry of Culture and Information. Each club receives SR1 million annually in government funding. The Jeddah club members have said this budget is inadequate to fulfill the group’s cultural programs.
In an interview with Arab News last year Deputy Minister of Culture Abdul Aziz Al-Sebail said that the budget of these clubs might be increased in the near future, but nothing was changed since then. Al-Sebail was unavailable for comment yesterday.
Poet Ahmad Qarran, a board member of the club, explained that the Jeddah club has already received approval from the Ministry of Culture and Information to organize the event, which will be the first time a literary club in the Kingdom will host a book fair. (The ministry organizes the annual Riyadh International Book Fair, which is the premier literary event in the Kingdom.)
“We have the ministry’s support so far, but we are waiting for financial backing,” said Qarran.
The first book fair in Jeddah took place in 1994 and since that time only four book fairs have taken place in the city. These fairs were organized by private companies and generally lacked the readings and other cultural activities that have made the Riyadh International Book Fair distinct.
Abdu Khal, novelist and a board member of the Jeddah Literary Club, last year expressed his desire to see the Kingdom’s major annual literary event relocated to Jeddah after an incident in 2006 when two women writers were verbally assaulted for not wearing niqab (the face-covering abaya) while signing their books at an event that was open to both men and women.
There is a perception among Jeddah writers that the Riyadh fair is being given favor by the government, and that cooperation between the literary club and the businessmen seems to be the only hope for Jeddah to get its own annual literary event.
