In case you’re interested, the panelists are: Fadhil al-Azzawi (Chair), Iraqi poet and novelist living in Germany; Munira al-Fadhel, Bahrain academic, researcher and critic; Isabella Camera d’Affilitto, Italian academic, translator and critic; Amjad Nasser, Jordanian writer and journalist; and Said Yaktine, Moroccan writer and critic.

But on to the fun part . . . Here are the six titles—four of which, I picked out to highlight in my initial post about the longlist. My track record of picking winning books is total trash, so four out of six seems pretty damn good. Anyway:

• Mohammed Achaari, The Arch and the Butterfly (Morroccan)

Tackling the themes of Islamic extremism and terrorism from a new angle, The Arch and the Butterfly explores the effect of terrorism on family life. It tells the story of a left-wing father who one day receives a letter from Al-Qaeda informing him that his son, who he believes is studying in Paris, has died a martyr in Afghanistan. The novel looks at the impact of this shocking news on the life of its hero and consequently on his relationship with his wife.

• Raja Alem, The Doves’ Necklace (Saudi Arabian)

The sordid underbelly of the holy city of Mecca is revealed in this astonishing story. The world painted by heroine Aisha embraces everything from prostitution and religious extremism to the exploitation of foreign workers under a mafia of building contractors, who are destroying the historic areas of the city. This bleak scene is contrasted with the beauty of Aisha’s love letters to her German boyfriend.

• Khalid Al-Bari, An Oriental Dance (Egyptian)

An Oriental Dance tells the story of a young Egyptian who, on marrying an older British woman, moves to England. Through his eyes, the reader is given a vivid account of the struggles and relationships of the Arab expatriate community living in the UK.

• Bensalem Himmich, My Tormentor (Moroccan)

In a gripping novel, whose narrative style is a blend of Kafka and One Thousand and One Nights, Himmich imagines an innocent man’s experience of extraordinary rendition in an American prison. During his captivity, the protagonist is subjected to interrogation and torture by both Arabs and foreigners and yet, against all odds, the author manages to find some hope in an otherwise desperate situation.

• Amir Taj Al-Sir, The Hunter of the Chrysalises (or The Head Hunter) (Sudanese)

The Hunter of the Chrysalises is the story of a former secret service agent who, having been forced to retire due to an accident, decide to write a novel about his experiences. He starts to visit a café frequented by intellectuals, only to find himself the subject of police scrutiny.

• Miral Al-Tahawy, Brooklyn Heights (Egyptian)

Brooklyn Heights tells the story of the New York’s Arab immigrants and those who live among them through the eyes of the female narrator. By contrasting her experiences in her chosen home, America, and her homeland Egypt, she reveals the problematic relationship between East and West. It is a story of fundamentalism and tolerance, loss and hope in love. Simple yet full of rich detail, the novel evokes the atmosphere of America over the last decade.

In case it’s not obvious, all descriptions are from the official

Based only on these descriptions above, I’m rooting for My Tormentor . . .

The winner will be announced right before the opening of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.

And speaking of Abu Dhabi, how awesome is it that ADIBF 2011 is gonna rock!

It’s interesting how different these two articles are—the one on the ADIBF is more focused on India’s entrance into the Arab book market, whereas the one on the LBF takes a look at the book market in India.

Starting with about the ADIBF:

Never slow to sense when a market is ready to open up, many Western publishers are already making a place for themselves in the Arab world. It’s rumoured that Penguin is soon scheduled to launch a Penguin Arabia — on the model of and perhaps inspired by Penguin India — Bloomsbury already has an overseas office in Qatar, Mills and Boon are big in the Arab world, and others are standing at the sidelines and waiting.

Nor have Indians been slow to sense a growing market. DeeCee publishers of Kerala have a large setup in Dubai that caters to the considerable Malayali population in the Gulf. Young Indian entrepreneurs have set up distribution agencies that cater to universities and schools, Jamia Milia Islamia in Delhi has put in place a translation programme whereby 25 titles from India will be translated into Arabic and five vice versa — and this is only a beginning — and Panther, a publisher of high quality medical DVDs is listed as one of their star attractions by one of the leading Gulf distributors, Kasha, who are based in Jordan.

Clearly, things are changing in the world of Arab writing and publishing. Like India, Arab countries provide one of the potentially most exciting markets of the world, and perhaps the day is not far off when Arab writers will start crowding the numbers of Booker prize winners in the way that Indians have begun to do.

This really echoes the sense that I came away with as well. Despite its distribution problems, the Arab world is a burgeoning market and a lot of publishers are figuring out how to best benefit from this.

Which is actually pretty similar to how the rest of the world looks at India’s book market as well, as on the London Book Fair makes clear:

A few years ago, at one of the panel discussions held during the Kitab festival in Mumbai, Antara Dev Sen was questioned about the coming of age of Indian literature. Her astute reply was that it was really the Indian economy that had come of age and the spotlight was therefore on everything Indian, including literature. That India had always had an excellent and ancient tradition of writing but the world had only zoomed in on it with the country’s booming stock market. [. . .]

To the West, India is the only English language book market with a potential for growth. But what did the Book Fair spell for India? For one, it showcased its new writing, poetry and fiction in translation, children’s writing and non-fiction to the world. “In the West, we continue to associate Indian writing with Amitav Ghosh and Arundhati Roy. It’s nice to learn about contemporary writers who haven’t yet found a readership here,” confessed a member of the audience. The concerns of the fair had to do with emerging literary trends in India seen — as Chief Editor and Publisher of HarperCollins India, V.K. Karthika, points out — in the interview of her and bestselling author Chetan Bhagat on BBC World Service Radio. “The fact that they chose to interview an author associated with popular fiction is telling,” she remarks. Literary agent Jayapriya Vasudevan, founder of Jacaranda Press, supports the view. “Popular Indian writing is being read now as opposed to just literary fiction 10 years ago. An unknown author has every chance of selling today,” she says. Vasudevan ought to know. Jacaranda, India’s first literary agency, represents new publishing house Blaft known for its quirky books and translations of Tamil and Hindi pulp fiction, which have elicited much interest at the fair. [. . .]

However, the fair also displayed the differences in literary concerns and trends between the East and the West. While the latter spoke of creative and life-writing courses, ‘enhanced’ e-books and technological innovations such as the Espresso book machine that prints books on demand, in-store, India was still concerned with widening its reach in the print arena. “E-books are not likely to play a big role in India at least for the next decade or so,” says Karthika. Our only association with other media was the talk on literature in cinema that included on its panel Javed Akhtar, Rachel Dwyer and Prasoon Joshi, among others. A sign, perhaps, that Indian literature has yet to truly come of age.