“It’s profoundly important to be willing to fail. What’s important is trying new things,” said Philip Patrick, a publisher at Crown Publishing, a division of Random House, as students from 14 nations listened raptly. Most were thousands of miles from home, seated at student desks at the brand new campus of New York University Abu Dhabi, participating in the inaugural executive publishing training sessions for publishers from the Arab world (and beyond). [Read more…] about Abu Dhabi Diary, Part I
Abu Dhabi
Oasis of Books
It was Saturday night in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. Women in black abayas and headscarves, children in tow, and men in flowing white dishdashas were wandering the aisles of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, eager to spend their dirhams. As a Western observer, I was intrigued to enter a realm very different from the more regimented fairs such as Book Expo America or The Frankfurt Book Fair, where publishers display their upcoming titles to booksellers and do rights business as well. For the Arab countries, in contrast, the book fair is predominantly a way to distribute reading materials directly to the buying populace. [Read more…] about Oasis of Books