Best-selling Cairo author refuses to let his work be translated into Hebrew and vows to go to court.
An Israeli peace activist’s plan to foster understanding between Arabs and Jews by translating an Egyptian best-seller into Hebrew has boomeranged into a cultural conflict.
Gershon Baskin, Co-Chief Executive Officer of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), said he undertook to distribute a Hebrew translation of Alaa Al-Aswany’s “The Yacoubian Building” to help Israelis better understand their Arab neighbors. But Al-Aswany, a dentist turned Cairo literary lion, is threatening to sue IPCRI, a Jerusalem-based organization promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace.
“I just want people to be able to read each others literature and talk with each other. There is nothing to be gained by not talking to one anther and reading one another’s literature,” Gershon told The Media Line. “Alaa Al-Aswany said if the book was published in Hebrew he would demand royalties and donate the money to Hamas.”
Three decades after Israel and Egypt signed the Camp David peace accords, the two countries have little to do with each other. Except for Israelis vacationing in Sinai desert resorts, virtually no tourists travel between the two countries and trade ties are largely limited to energy imports by Israel. Egypt’s cultural establishment shuns any “normalization” with the Jewish state.
Indeed, Israeli skeptical of peace with the Palestinians point to Egypt as the failure of Israel to reach an accommodation with its neighbors.
While Al-Aswany is among those who oppose cultural ties with Israel, he said the real issue with the unauthorized translation was intellectual theft. Bringing up his opposition to normalization with Israel was a distraction, he insisted.
“The fact is someone’s intellectual property has been stolen and that this happened in Israel, a country that claims to be democratic.” he told the Associated Press. “This is a violation and they are trying to cover it up and justify the theft.”
But Baskin said Al-Aswany was only protesting the translation in order not to offend Egypt’s cultural establishment, in particular the Writers Syndicate. Baskin said he approached Al-Aswany at a Swedish literary conference two years ago and asked for permission to distribute a private Hebrew translation. Al-Aswany turned him down, repeatedly. Baskin said he decided to distribute the translation anyhow after consulting with Palestinian colleagues and writers.
“I think he is making the threats because he has to’ Baskin said. “That it is lip service. So if he would like to sue us we would like to meet him in Israeli courts, we will treat him like a king and welcome him to Israel even if he sues us.”
Published in Arabic in 2002, The Yacoubian Building is set at the time of the 1990 Gulf War and offers a scathing portrayal of modern Egyptian society. It was the best-selling Arabic novel for 2002 and 2003, and made into a motion picture. It has been translated into 29 languages worldwide but, at Al-Aswany’s request, not into Hebrew.
Officially Egypt doesn’t forbid authors, journalists and other intellectuals from working with Israelis and Jews. But most published authors are members of the Egyptian Writers’ Syndicate, whose rules prohibit books written by members to be translated into Hebrew and/or distributed in Israel.
"Even if it’s not a stated policy, writers assume they will get in trouble if they’re translated," Professor Gabriel Rosenbaum, director of the Israeli Academic Center in Cairo, told The Media Line. "There is definitely pressure on writers not to be translated into Hebrew."
Ali Salem, an Egyptian author and playwright whose work has been translated into Hebrew, said that although he believed Al-Aswany’s position was wrong, his work should not have been translated without his permission.
"In general, however, I support translation of literature in both directions: from Arabic to Hebrew, and vice versa," he told The Media Line. " This is my position and will remain my position, even though many people utterly disagree with me."
Certain people in Egypt, Salem added, believe that a literature boycott is an effective means of pressuring Israel to establish a Palestinian state.
In 1994 Salem visited Israel, documenting his impressions in a book titled "A Drive to Israel: An Egyptian Meets his Neighbors." In 2005, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Ben Gurion University in Beersheva, but Egyptian authorities demanded he obtain a special entry permit to Israel. He declined to make an application and stayed home.
"In the sixties we were not allowed to leave Egypt without a special exit visa," he told The Media Line. "Today I would like to feel I am a free man, living in a free country."