I made it to only one day of the much ballyhooed Emirates International Literature Festival held this weekend at the Intercon Hotel, Festival City (Dubai) and overall found it to be a pretty trashy affair mitigated by a few class acts. On the evidence one day was enough. The event did succeed however in one respect: inventing a new unpronounceable acronym. EAIFL anyone? I’m wondering if there’s some way the organizers of the event might reconstrue the celebration to read PULP--or how about the Authors Shopping Festival (ASF)? These would be more pronounceable and accurate. Of course the emphasis on pulp fiction & authors of bestsellers was obvious from the start, along with a sprinkling of respectable literary names such as Margaret Atwood (who withdrew controversially) and Louis de Bernieres who gave it some literary depth and prestige. Jung Chang, author of Wild Swans, whom I missed is certainly a quality act as well. The inclusion of lesser-known more qualitatively inclined authors such as some of the Arab writers there also gives pause to a blanket condemnation. Emirati Mohammed Al Murr, well-known, popular and not trashy, was a prominent organizer of the event. Having said all this, it was the Wilbur Smiths, Philippa Gregorys and Karin Slaughters whose milelong racks of pulp titles dominated the event and whose shiny no doubt very shallow books occupied the big tent. All you needed to do was check out the fonts used in the titles. Pulp uses italicized slant serif while quality uses custom deco typefaces.
Other mitigating elements were: the inclusion of children’s authors (such as Lauren Child) whose works seemed very decent within the genre, and, since good literature isn’t automatically unpopular there are inevitably some best-selling authors whose works reputedly transcend the category such as Frank McCourt (of Angela's Ashes fame) who was there. Robert Irwin, the all too little known scholar and novelist/fanstasist of topics Middle-Eastern also made an appearance. His book on the camel seemed light weight compared to previous work, but he too is far from superficial and doesn't belong in the company of bestselling ripoffs.
I went to two events – a symposium of Arab authors including Khalid Khalmissi and Ibrahim Nasrallah who discussed the dilemmas in trying to “raise awareness” of Arab literature – a serious and worthwhile discussion that was simultaneously interpreted through headsets. The other was a slick “conversation” with Louis de Bernieres conducted in front of an impressively big audience of fans. The author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin was mainly witty, entertaining and disarmingly frank though at times amazingly cocky (as in comparing himself to Tolstoy). Reputedly hostile to the famous film adaptation of his novel, De Bernieres offered the hugely laughable proposition that the Italian actor Roberto Benigni would have been better in the role of Captain Corelli than Nicolas Cage. His fans’ questions were so embarrassingly sweet, I wanted to ask a more critical question but the hour session broke up on time, and later I saw De Bernieres at the autograph tables working on a line of at least 50 or 60 souls, like the check-in line at an airlines desk.
The free fringe events had folded up before I arrived – I’d signed up for a storytelling workshop organized by the BC – but had to cancel unfortunately. The debate/discussion on free speech was, as described by a Foyles bookstore manager, lively, frank and to the point but a bit controlled and not thrown out to the audience. The authors in the school day program on Sunday, widely reported, added to the event’s pleasant afterglow.
Finally, you have to ask yourself: at what cost the bestsellers? Do the Karin Slaughters, Phillipa Gregorys and Wilbur Smiths of the world need any extra publicity? How can the reputations of smaller-scale, qualitative writers thrive in the company of so much schlock? Given the mix of levels and events, the show isn’t an automatic write off, but if next year’s event is as trashy as this one, it may rate a pass. Then again it may not.
