‘There is nothing else quite like it’: Terri-ann White on Sharjah
Publishers and literary agents from 108 countries participated in this year’s Sharjah Publishers Conference, and Upswell publisher Terri-ann White was an Australian representative to the conference. She writes on the experience at Sharjah this year for Books+Publishing.
This year was my fifth visit to the remarkable Sharjah Publishers Conference that has sat alongside the Sharjah International Book Fair every October for the past 14 years. The book fair has been operating for 43 years, and this year clocked 1.82 million visitors. Until a couple of years ago there was an overlap of days, too, so that conference publishers were invited to the opening of the book fair. They are now separated by a day.
The scale and dimensions of this annual event are gob-smacking: over 1000 publishers, agents, and affiliated characters—from authors to vanity and (often) somewhat indeterminate setups. Mostly, for me, this is a corrective from the world of English-language commercial publishing, and a rich chance to meet the Arab world’s publishing enterprises, along with a raft of Eastern European book people and representatives from the wide-ranging Indian book industry, including numerous government-led initiatives. Following close behind, there are writers’ festival and book fair personnel. It is a particularly nuanced gathering of people—and it’s thrilling for this reason. You can always feel a surge and drive in the room, or read about it overnight from the key editors and writers from publishing’s international journalism. (Publishing Perspectives and Publishers Weekly are always in attendance here.)
The meeting program is arranged ahead of the conference: an online request form for all attendees, which allows bookings within a 30-minute slot model across the two days. I usually take a passive role for maximum impact of meeting new people and leaving the onus on those I have met to opt in and follow up business. Most participants have adequate English or translation services, and these days, there are few no-shows.
The first day is taken up with a set of speakers and discussants, most of whom are big names in the world of international publishing. The powerhouse behind this event is Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi, president of the American University of Sharjah and immediate-past president of the International Publishers Association, who spoke this year about fragmentation in world politics and the need for the publishing world to bring communities together to speak to each other. ‘If we allow different communities to only have conversations among themselves, they will reinforce their own biases and prejudices, creating a world where understanding across cultures is lost. In such a world, no one wins,’ she said.
The attendance for our three-day gathering was officially reported as 1146 publishers and literary agents from 108 nations. Al Qasimi has a seemingly unquenchable desire to create initiatives to bring the industry into line with opportunities late to arrive everywhere, to reward people who have hitherto been kept outside full participation. These have included brilliant literacy programs in Africa, opportunities for diversity in programs for skills and, ultimately, enfranchisement. This year, a new program named PublishHer was given centre stage. It started as a small workshop group last year, and demonstrated the value of powerful champions to really kickstart advocacy for women in publishing.
As a package deal, Sharjah is certainly worth my while to attend for the new perspectives and the range of meetings one can get involved in. There is one afternoon of targeted and interesting roundtable discussions. The hospitality is generous, and Lightning Source puts on a reception at their headquarters at Sharjah Publishing City. Increasingly it is an event where hot issues from international publishing are canvassed in the seminar talks, but the larger gathering remains friendly and open-minded. There is nothing else quite like it, despite other nations trying to copy the model.
Pictured: HarperCollins chief digital officer and CEO of international foreign language Chantal Restivo-Alessi in conversation with Publishing Perspectives editor-in-chief Porter Anderson at a Sharjah Publishers Conference day-one event.
Category: Features
