SIBF promotes cross-cultural bonds through translated books

Translations of classics have been a great binding factor for the world at large, and the sheer volume of translated works at the SIBF 2025 makes its goal of being a cultural bridge and meeting place truly relevant.

The Sharjah Book Authority’s (SBA) translation grant “Turjuman” has provided the necessary fillip for this cross-cultural connection and literary enrichment.

The Arabic language is one of the oldest and most widely spoken in the world, and its wealth of literature has now received more popularity because of the universal appeal of writers like Kahlil Gibran, Rumi and Naguib Mahfouz.

The Arabic language has been extremely receptive of works from other languages, although the volume of translations from Arabic to English is still in a growing stage.

For instance, the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, which is exhibiting its books at SIBF 2025, has translated over 1,400 books from other languages to Arabic.

“Translations are a bridge between cultures. Much of the challenges the world is going through is because of lack of communication between civilisation, countries and regions within countries. The more we understand each other, the more we will be able to communicate our concerns and ambitions. It will help us to cooperate through our works and live in a shared, one world. That is my vision for translation,” said Mamoun Abdelrahman, founder and CEO of Jusur Publishing from Sudan, who is exhibiting at SIBF.

He has translated Aicha Bennour’s novels such as The Captive Women in Hell from Arabic to English, French, and Spanish.

He added: “Translations are better today as we can do a fair translation using AI first; then we can do a professional translation using a human translator to bring in the emotions, idioms and so on.”

The House of Philosophy from Fujairah is exhibiting English to Arabic translations of Greg Fisher’s Arabs and Empires Before Islam and Virginia Postrel’s The Fabric of Civilisation.

Published by Al Muheet Publishing, the books have been translated by Ammer Thwaini and Adham Mathar respectively. Wahid, sales-in-charge at the stall, commented that it has been receiving competent sales.

The Abu Dhabi Department of Culture’s imprint Sandstorm has an array of brightly illustrated children’s cartoon novels in English which will soon be translated into Arabic; among them Arko and the Cat has an Arabic translation.

A popular purchase at SIBF 2025 is Fountain of the Drowning, translated from Arabic into English by Roger Allen; it is Egyptian author Reem Bassiouney’s novel published by Diwan Publishing from Egypt.

The Indian stalls, especially the ones in the Malayalam language are a treasure house of translations.

Most popular classics from English are available at the stalls for a reasonable price. The Tamil language stalls are also not far behind and have translations of Ikigai, Atomic Habits and other self-help books.

An interesting translation from Indian languages to Arabic is an anthology of poems by Malayalam poet ONV Kurup and Thirukkural by ancient Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar.

The books are available at the UAE Ministry of Culture’s pavilion and Kalemon Publishing’s stall.

According to Dr. Jahir Husain, Arabic language professor from the University of Madras, India, the Thirukkural translation had a book release on November 10.

“There has been good relations between the Arab world and India since ancient times, and this book is testimony to that. In future, I plan to translate more of our literature into Arabic. The response has been very good,” he added.

Meanwhile, comics have evolved in the Arab world from being a form of children’s entertainment into a tool for shaping cultural awareness and expressing collective consciousness, according to Dr Hessa Al-Mufreh, Professor of Literature and Criticism at King Saud University.

Speaking at a session titled Comic books in the Arab World: A New Step Towards Cultural Enlightenment organised by the Saudi Pavilion at the 2025 Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF), Dr. Al-Mufreh said that the art form now serves as a platform for defending social issues and engaging readers through the powerful blend of words and images.