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First of all, we wanted a nice atmosphere but like I said earlier nothing westernized we wanted an Arab motif ,like the Islamic motif that we used in the logo, the packaging, the bookmarks and the printed materials as well as the inside decoration of the place.
We had a great designer who was responsible of the layout of the place.
11. How do you manage to import that huge number of international books into Egypt?
Importing books was a big step for us to take. As we were a small and new operation some international publishers felt we were too risky to deal with at first. Then clearing all these books through customs and the usual bureaucracy was also a challenge. But with time and a few mistakes things became easier and ran more smoothly.
11. I was there in the anniversary of Diwan last March, when the five Egyptian bestsellers were invited to have a discussion with their readers and I remember that the Arab human development report was mentioned in the discussion, mentioning the issue of lack of translated books in Egypt whether from or into Arabic… Now we can easily notice that huge number of translated books mainly into Arabic, which proves that Diwan is playing a role in changing and improving the culture of the community in Egypt…Can you tell me about this?
Translated books from other languages into Arabic have always been available in Egypt to some degree. I think they are becoming more available and more popular. This is increasing our exposure to world literature, which is great. The Cairo International Book Fair aids in that as there is a tremendous amount of translated books on show and for sale from Syrian and Lebanese publishers. You may have to look really hard for them but they are there and they are on the rise. Because Diwan is in a visible location and attracts a wide variety of customer’s everyday and because we take a certain amount of care to display books in an attractive way, I think this makes our book selection more accessible and easy to browse through for the customer
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Yara Kassem
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Comments
great Raymond M. Kristiansen | Jul 2nd, 2004
I really liked this interview. The story of how they created Diwan is inspiring, and it is good to hear how cultural centres like these, established by just a few individuals, can have have more wide-spread influence in their city or country. Good job!
Yara, Shavkatjon | Jul 4th, 2004
thanks so much for sharing this article,it gave me a bit mroe of inspiration and lots of ideas on ym work on the same thign here in Tajikistan. It is amazing that I found exactly the same vision of keeping thigns/culture alive among your friends and people..I am looking forward to learning somemore news about Diwans current state...
keep up your excellent work,
Shokran,
shavkat
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