Less than a year after its partnership with the Qatar Foundation was ended, Bloomsbury Publishing is signing a new agreement with the Sharjah, UAE-based Kalimat Group:
Kalimat Group, which began publishing picture-book titles in 2007, now has three different imprints: the original Kalimat; Horouf, which brings out educational tools and materials; and Rewayat, which focuses on books for adults and young adults. Kalimat Group has published more than 170 titles since its launch nine years ago.
According to The Bookseller, “The partnership will see both publishing companies exchange the same number of books to be published in translation each year.”
They’ll begin with 10 titles from each publisher as early as this year, 2016. These titles will include books for children and young adults as well as general-audience fiction. There has long been an affinity between the Bloomsbury children’s-book department and Kalimat Group; Bloomsbury employees had been traveling to the Gulf to support their partnership with the Qatar Foundation, which ran 2010-2015.
In a statement that ran on The Bookseller, Kalimat Group CEO Bodour Al Qasimi said:
Our new partnership with Bloomsbury will be instrumental in spreading the UAE’s and the Arab world’s culture to as wide an audience of children and young adults as possible. We fully hope that this partnership will enable us to reach a greater number of readers and allow us to spread knowledge about our unique heritage to a new markets.
This agreement will also open up global culture to children in the Gulf region. By translating a range of Bloomsbury’s publications into Arabic, we will create a new channel for intercultural exchange and help young people in our region better appreciate and understand societies outside their own. With Bloomsbury having such a renowned name in the international publishing sphere, there could be no better partner for such an important undertaking.
