At Qanatra.de Ruth Renée Reif has a Q & A with Arabic-to-German literary translator Hartmut Faehndrich, the disappointingly titled: "What I don't see is an on-going interest in Arabic literature".
He describes the German market -- and, hey. it doesn't sound that different from the US/UK one:
Perhaps most shocking:
He describes the German market -- and, hey. it doesn't sound that different from the US/UK one:
The German-speaking market has a preponderance of literature by Egyptian and Lebanese authors. Other countries, by contrast, are not represented at all. The Arabian Peninsula, for example, is totally under-represented. You can search in vain for Yemeni or Omani literature. Saudi literature is likewise virtually non-existent. Maghrebi literature is usually translated from the French only. There are only one or two works from Tunisia that have been translated from the original Arabic into German. The same goes for Algeria and Morocco. To my knowledge, nothing from Mauritania has been translated from Arabic. Iraq is represented by a few books; Libya by a single author.("If there were a hall of fame for hardest countries in the world to find literature from in English, Mauritania would be up there with the best of them" noted Ann Morgan at her A year of reading the world-weblog.)
Perhaps most shocking:
In the case of Arabic literature, though, most publishers prefer to get their information from the Internet. I find that demoralising. It means that they can only translate the titles that are already available in English or French.(Not that I place much faith in scouts, either, but come on .....)