Today is World Book Day, the UNESCO established it as annual feature in April 23, 1995 to promote reading habits and publishing. This year the National Book Foundation (NBF) organised a National Book Day Festival, celebrated throughout Pakistan from April 22 to 24. I am writing this column ahead of the festival, but I can predict how it will run. There will be photo ops showing hundreds of people, men, women and children, browsing through books. At the end of the festival the NBF will announce the festival was a great success. Lots of books were sold. The NBF goes home patting itself on the back. We won't hear from them till the next World Book Day in 2017.
Organisations like NBF and Anjuman Taraqee Urdu, others of their ilk promoting book reading in provincial languages, are to be admired. Their service and dedication is admirable. Yet they so not encourage people to buy books because they do not understand the business side of promoting book reading and publishing. Our book industry, if I may so describe book publishing, is very basic and old fashioned. A book is published; it is launched and then sent to a few bookstalls. It is left to the poor author to go about offering his book for sale. Most of the books published in Pakistan, especially Urdu books, are not displayed attractively in bookstalls and shops. You have to ask for a book. The salesman will then look through his computer to know if they have the book. If they do, he will walk down looking at the shelves stuffed with books and produce it. Such book shops, which are the norm in the city, are boring.
There is no window-shopping for books. Compare it to window-shopping for jewellery, clothes, cookware, and tableware. It is so exciting. You do not have to buy something, but you could note something and buy it when your budget allows it, or maybe you will just forget it. Nevertheless, the window-shopping was fun. Do you have that in the majority of bookshops, except a handful in the malls?
In these grand shops too, there is commercialism, that is, books published in the West are prominently displayed. A salesman will follow you around suggesting you buy this book or that book. "You know maam, buy Elif Shafak's book on Rumi. We display it and a customer promptly buys it. We are running out of stock." You buy the book. Do they do the same for Urdu books, books on religion, and biographies of prominent Muslims? No. Those books, therefore, are not bought by the general book reader, only by those truly interested, mostly scholars and teachers.
Recently, I read a highly informative biography of a revered personality; in fact, I have read it three times. I am interested in such books, but the person from whom I borrowed it is not. She bought the book at K L Airport, Malaysia. It means the book was prominently displayed, and browsing through it she was encouraged to purchase it. Would such a book be on display here. The book I read was purchased in Malaysia, and by a general bookreader, not a scholar, teacher, researcher or history buff; just an ordinary person who loves to read.
Promotion of book reading and publishing does not begin and end with festivals. It is an on-going process. We should take a page out of the West's book industry. April 22 this year marks the 400th death anniversary of Miguel de Cervantes, author of the famous 'Don Quixote'. Spain, his homeland, has organised 300 events, which include exhibitions, guided tours of his place of birth, plays, readings, conferences. All of it will spillover throughout the world, for Cervantes 'Don Quixote' is one of the world's most translated works. The world knows Cervantes, not only through Spain but through books translations published throughout Europe, the US, Canada and Japan.
This April also marks the 400th death anniversary of William Shakespeare. Many events will be held throughout the world to remember this great playwright. The publishing industry flourishes because of continuous promotion of books and authors. Any book, from any part of the world, if it is published in the West is promoted intensively for instance books of the Turkish, Latin American and African authors, which were written in their languages. In short, our publishing activity is not a full fledged modern industry. They just do not know how to make money.
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