The Middle East has an unenviable reputation when it comes to reading. For a culture so closely associated with storytelling, the legacy of Scheherazade has taken a battering in recent years.
‘I’ve heard many different crazy statistics,’ says Dana Al Sarraj, a project manager for Kitab, the government’s ‘get everybody reading’ programme. ‘One rumour was that the average Arab reader only reads for six minutes a year.’ She is referring only to books, of course, but it is a commonly cited statistic. One theory is that it is just a matter of apathy. If that is the case then the emirate has found a novel (ahem) solution – let the books come to you. So enter the new Kitab bus, the emirate’s very first mobile library.
The project was launched last month on the back of the Al Ain Reads festival and, on the whole, the response has been good, says Dana. The library itself contains everything from The Hungry Caterpillar to Hemingway for Arab and English speakers alike. After a few hiccups involving the fickle nature of air-conditioning, the public, particularly families, have taken the bus to their heart. However, it has not all been plain-sailing, as Dana explains: ‘In Arabic, the word for library can also mean bookstore, so some people think we’re trying to sell them something, or else they’re just shy, so I’m having to approach them.’ Such a prospect is unlikely to phase the confident young Palestinian but, judging by some of the quizzical gazes we get stood outside Al Ain’s Bawadi Mall, the struggle is definitely that of the uphill variety.
In November the library comes to Abu Dhabi for a week. It will go to schools in the mornings, predicts Dana, but in the afternoon sets up shop in the city’s parks. ‘There’s a mobile number on the back of the bus’, she says. ‘You can’t miss it. You can get in touch with us to find out where we’ll be.’ Alternatively, you can always request a visit. ‘We’ve set up this hotline for people to call if they want the bus to come to them,’ she says. And who answers, I enquire? She pulls out a mobile phone from her back pocket and waggles it at me. Mystery solved.
After Abu Dhabi, the Kitab express heads out into the wilderness of the Western Region. ‘One of our objectives is to reach where there isn’t already a library service,’ explains Dana. The schedule was planned for an initial three months, then it will continue on an ad-hoc basis, ‘but if people phone us up we will go’, she says. ‘We go where we’re needed. We’re like the bus superheroes.’ Currently her team of Emirati volunteer superheroes are sat reading in a quiet circle. It hardly looks the stuff of heroism, but it is the best way to attract passersby, says Dana. ‘They see that there is something going on and become curious,’ she explains.
The volunteers come courtesy of the Al Ain Municipality. They are largely Emirati students, I discover. Students such as Mohammad, who bravely admits to not exactly being an avid reader himself. ‘When I told my friends what I was doing, they laughed,’ he says, ‘but I wanted to do something I’d never done before.’ The others tell similar tales. One has just discovered Bram Stoker’s Dracula and talks eagerly of vampires and Whitby. At the end they get a certificate to put on their CVs. Everybody wins.
Others set to help out on the bus include local writers. One of which is Dr Safa, a Dubai-based dentist turned author, who started writing as a hobby 10 years ago. Then one day she heard her neighbour’s children singing one of her stories; not long afterwards she went to a printing press with 31 completed children’s books and set about publishing them. A gentle soul, when I speak to her she has been reading with children all day long and is looking forward to going out on the road with the bus.
Attracting and keeping interest is clearly the key. At the moment the bus is scheduled to operate one week a month spread over the next few months. After that it depends on demand. ‘If people keep letting us know they want us to come and continue these tours, we will. ‘If there isn’t any enthusiasm, what is the point?’ says Dana. Certainly Abu Dhabi needs a new library fast. At the moment, a large chunk of the city’s main book collection at the Cultural Foundation is being stored in boxes until its relocation.
I end by asking Dana why she’s so enthusiastic about this project. She says she comes from a family of readers, before adding: ‘I just think reading makes you a better person.’ I tell her I studied literature for four years and that I’m a terrible human being. She just laughs and points to the bus where, emblazoned across the rear, are the words: ‘reading is fun’. Now, not even a cynic like me can disagree with that.
The Kitab book bus will be in Abu Dhabi from November 6.
