Literature in the exhibition "Cairo Book" .. Attracted the reader, even on the body of the text

Doaa Abdel Latif - Cairo

"A woman with a cat's features ... her hair falling red, her body coated with a halo of steam, leaving for a door behind which a semi-naked man sitting in the shower sits." Young Egyptian Tamer Atwa.

The title of the novel sparked controversy on social media platforms, and the cover design also increased criticism. Nevertheless, the work achieved a high sales rate with its display during the activities of the 51st session of the Cairo International Book Fair that started on January 22 and continues until February 4.

"Open .. I am Nadia" is not an anomaly within the corridors of the Cairo Book Fair. It seems that many young authors are following the thrill of drawing the attention to their literary works in light of the large number of Egyptian and foreign publishers.

The number of publishers in the exhibition reached 900 publishing houses this year, an increase of 153 destination publishers over the past year.

Attract the reader
The Cairo Book Fair is witnessing a high wave of literary works by Egyptian youth writers, which is trying to capture the thread of popularity among the readership using any possible means.

Among these works is the novel "Married My Brother" by the writer Fatima Saleh, who received a lot of criticism because of the title of the work before its publication in libraries.

Despite the criticism that reached in some stages of the attack on the producers of "I got married to my brother," Saleh thanked those who promoted her work, considering the attack as a free advertisement for the book.

On the same path, the novelist, Sayyid Dawood Al-Mut'ani, walked with his novel "My Virgin Fiancee is Pregnant," and the writer Hoda Al-Sha'ari with the novel "Usurped but."

The owner of "My Virgin's Fiancée is Pregnant" tried to defend the name of his novel, stressing that the content discusses the rumors related to honor in our societies, and the implications for the victim and her family.

Attracting the reader is not limited to a cover or title, we find that many young novelists tend to write the content of excitement and horror, in addition to that which is romantic in nature, which finds good resonance among readers from the younger age groups.

The novels of the young writer Hassan al-Jundi are an appropriate model for the horrors that young people are eager to acquire.

Also, the series of novels "Nader Fouda" by Ahmed Younes, published by Sama Publishing and Distribution, describes horror works, and it appears that her writer has an ambition to continue the series.

Younis said in a press statement that the reader absorbs a lot of serial works, pointing to the series of works by writers Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq and Nabil Farouk, which have achieved great success.

In Dawn Publishing and Distribution, which is known for targeting the young readership category, two romantic novels were at the top of the list of best-selling books, "What Narrated by the Sea" by Sandra Siraj, and "Two Hours and Call Back" by Ahmed Muhanna.

Colloquial writing
And under the umbrella of surrendering to the trends of the reading market there is a tweet very far away, so he wrote complete fictional texts in colloquial Egyptian, like the young novelist Islam Shaheen in his novel "Tangel".

Shaheen said in a press statement that the novel made a very great resonance, and the demand to buy it exceeded all expectations, to the extent that four editions were exhausted in only three days.

"Colloquial writing impressed me, so I found it closest to the reader, and it was indeed a very successful risk, but I intend to publish works in classical language in the near future," he added.

On the other hand, there are works by young writers that appear to be written without looking at the magnifying lens of the reading market trends, including the novel "Haji Alman" by Ibrahim Ahmed Issa, which takes place during World War I, and highlights the Amazigh resistance to French and Spanish colonization in Morocco.

The novel achieved the highest sales at the Koutoubia house in the Cairo Book Fair, according to the sales officials of the house.

Along the same path, Ahmad Awni’s novel “Awards for Heroes”, which takes the January 25 revolution, lamented the suffering of an entire generation of young people, and the work won first place in the Sawiris Cultural Award as the best novel in the category of youth for the year 2019.

Vernacular poetry
For many years, publishing houses remained ascetic in the enthusiasm for any poetic texts, and the justification was always on the lips of those in charge of them, because poetry has no audience, and therefore its production is considered a matter of love for material loss.

However, this year was out of the ordinary for years, and many poetry collections were issued, even though the vast majority of them were in the Egyptian colloquial, and what is presented in the classical language is in the category of prose poem.

According to what the publishing houses announced, some of the bureaus submitted by young poets met with great success during the exhibition days "Good Night" by Amr Hassan issued by Dar Al-Rawaq, and "Reassure" by Muhammad Ibrahim on the role of Don, and "Time" by Mustafa Ibrahim on the authority of Dar Karma.

The poetry of those who present works that are accused of being far from the concept of creativity, such as the book “Shallah Haddouk Ya Time” by the poet Magda Jaber, were not delivered.

It said, "Fix your fatigue, O time .. and run away .. Lea, tongue, wood, and eye .. Leah Edd ... No matter how much my joy floats ... Lisa Walid .. Live his life Bibi Noun ... a new being."

The former president of the Book Authority, Dr. Ahmed Mujahid, monitored in a report on the status of publishing poetry in Egypt, that the percentage of publishing the collections of classical poetry collections during 2018 is only about 1% of the total published books, 3.7% of the total published in literature in general, and 25% of the total published Only in poetry.

Mujahid explained that the small colloquial poetry collections that are printed at the expense of their owners away from the publishing houses represent a large percentage of the publishing of poetry.

He stated that the owners of the bureaus often resort to spreading their poetry in this way, for their approval in the book union or in literary clubs in the governorates, without passing their books on committees to read and evaluate the poetic product through a governmental or private party.

Signing parties
In a cautionary tone, a sound from loudspeakers echoing, stressing that the pavilions of publishing houses in the exhibition halls will not hold their signature parties and abide by the halls designated for that.

These warnings are trying to avoid the maze of signing ceremonies that took place in the previous year’s session, as poorly organized hundreds of parties controlled.

The warnings do not receive the commitment of some publishing houses, and the signing parties were held inside the publishing houses to facilitate the writers and readers, but that caused crowds and crowds in the corridors between the wings.

Despite the difficulty of setting up a signature ceremony for the writer, we find some publishing houses evaluating more than one writer's concert over different days during the exhibition, to attract readers to obtain the signature of the author, which means selling more copies of the book.

The strategy of dealing with some publishers with signature parties appears to be a mirror of dealing with many new literary texts, so achieving sales and then financial profits is the goal of the literature industry for some publishing houses.