Arabic-Language Children's Literature: A Project of the International Youth Library

Despite their geographical size as well as cultural and political importance, Arabic-speaking countries still play a comparatively minor role in international children's and youth literature. Even though interest has grown in recent years, Arabic-language children's and young adult books and their authors and illustrators are little noticed internationally. This is also true of the German-language book market, in which translations from Arabic are still in short supply and the availability of non-translated original-language books is low. There are hardly any booksellers specializing in Arabic literature. Public libraries and school libraries are often inadequately equipped with books for young Arabic-speaking readers. One reason for this is the lack of information for librarians, educators, and other mediators about trends and recommended titles. The authors and illustrators, as well as topics and contents of Arabic-language children's books, are mostly unknown in Germany, although the need for and interest in exchange with the Arabicspeaking world has grown.

Figure 1.

This lack of knowledge and access has become particularly evident since 2015, when the number of refugees and immigrants from Syria, Iraq, and other countries arriving in Europe greatly increased. A large proportion of the migrants arrived in Germany, where they needed to be admitted, sheltered, cared for, and integrated as quickly as possible. The demand for original-language multilingual media soon grew in libraries and schools, as well as in institutions where refugees and those seeking protection live. Children's books are important mediums and mediators for integration. They can be inclusive and promote intercultural exchange. Books written in the original language can provide a piece of home for young people who have fled war or poverty and strive to preserve their language as a link to their origins. At the same time, this literature can also build bridges to the Arab world, which is often perceived in a stereotypical and prejudiced way. The prerequisite for this productive exchange is that Arab children's and young adult books are made known in German-speaking countries and brought to libraries, and translations are encouraged.

This situation inspired a three-year project, which the International Youth Library (IYL) launched in 2017 and is pioneering in Germany. The project is funded by the city of Munich and aims to provide an insight into Arabic-language children's literature while recommending books that might be suitable for use in libraries, kindergartens, and schools. The project also encourages German-language publishers to take a closer look at the children's book production in Arabic-speaking countries and to discover books that could be of interest to their book market and deserve to be translated.

The IYL is happy to have enlisted the Syrian scholar and cultural historian Azad Hamoto, who has been living in Munich for several years, to work on this project. The work began with a survey of the Arabic-language children's and young adult book market. Which subjects, themes, and genres play a significant role? Which authors and illustrators deserve special attention? Where are interesting, important publishers located? With these questions in mind, numerous titles from the current publishing programs have been reviewed and critically examined over the past few years as part of the project. Hasmig Chahinian, specialist for Arabic-language children's and youth literature at the Centre National de la Litteŕature pour la Jeunesse (CNLJ—IBBY France) at the French National Library, assisted with valuable advice and insights.

Figure 2.

In the spring of 2018, the IYL published a reference catalog presenting recommended titles. In May 2019, a second catalog followed (Figures 2 and 3). A third catalog will be published in spring 2020 at the completion of the three-year project. The twenty-eight-page German-language catalogs each offer forty annotated titles, along with bibliographic data, images of book covers, and brief biographical information on authors and illustrators, as well as a name and subject index.

On the occasion of the publication of the first catalog, the...