‘I admire how hard the Arabic publishing world works to get a book sold’

The novel Summer Brother (published by Uitgeverij de Geus) tells the story of thirteen-year-old Brian, who lives with his father in a caravan at a remote spot. Brian’s intellectually and physically disabled brother Lucien spends his days in an institution. Everything changes when Lucien needs to be looked after somewhere else and is brought to the caravan. Summer Brother was published in 2018, and over the years it has been translated into languages including Turkish, Czech, English and Albanian. In 2022 the Arabic translation of Summer Brother was published by Al Arabi, based in Cairo.

How did the idea for Summer Brother come about?
‘My parents used to work at a residential institution for people with a physical or mental disability. When I hadn’t yet started at primary school and my parents were unable to arrange childcare for me, I’d often go there with them.

‘As a child you always evaluate people based on their age, and the older they are, the more they know. That’s the perspective you have then. But in the home where my parents worked there were people who looked like my grandpa or grandma, even though in some respects I was more mature than they were. I found that fascinating.

‘That’s one of the themes of Summer Brother. It’s about a brother who physically has the strength of a twenty-year-old but mentally has the judgemental capacity of a person aged eighteen months or two years. To what extent can you hold someone like that responsible for their actions? At the same time, it amounts to a frightening responsibility for all the people around them, because if someone is unable to judge the consequences of their actions, there’s a hole that swallows up guilt. While I was writing the book, I wondered what caring responsibility you have when you’re close to such a person.’

Summer Brother has now been translated into Arabic and to promote the translation you went to the book fair in Cairo. What was you impression of the fair?
‘It was the first time I’d been there, and I’d never attended such a big book fair. The emphasis is mainly on selling books. One of the halls was completely full of holy books, mainly korans. Families from all over the Arabic-speaking world, from Kuwait to Algeria, travel to Cairo for the occasion. It’s almost impossible to give an idea of the distances people travel to get to the book fair. That was impressive to see.’

Did you meet readers of Summer Brother at the fair?
‘Yes, and actually that surprised me. It’s always hard to estimate exactly how the translation of your book is going to do in other countries. Beforehand I wondered whether anybody at all would have read Summer Brother. But a lot of people came to watch a reading and interview that I gave at the fair. There were people in the audience who worked in the care sector, or who had family members with an intellectual disability. They’d all read the book. One woman came to the reading with her brother, who was mentally disabled. She’d given Summer Brother to her parents as a way of being able to talk about her brother. So the book really did mean something for these people.’

You’ve twice been on television in Egypt. Could tell us a bit more about that?
‘The nicest interview I had was on a breakfast show for the Egyptian broadcaster Al Qahera – comparable in size to Al Jazeera – where I joined the presenters for a chat about the importance of poetry, and the significance of poetry in society. It was a substantive discussion about literature, and I was struck by the fact that they’d made space for it. I don’t think you’d be likely to find something like that happening in the Netherlands, because Dutch talk shows are more likely to be about the person who’s appearing as a guest. I notice that in the Arabic world, poetry is appreciated far more. It’s also far more common to learn poems by heart.’

Did that television interview increase your visibility in the Arabic-speaking world?
‘It certainly did. Afterwards I received a lot of new interview requests for newspapers and websites. And shortly after the interview was broadcast, the publishing house in Cairo bought the rights to A Twilight Life (Schemerleven). The book has just come out in Arabic, so I expect I’ll be getting new requests again.’

What has stayed with you most from your trip to Cairo?
‘I admire how hard the Arabic publishing world has to work to get a book sold. There are a few bookshops in Cairo, but most books are sold through street vendors, and it’s not necessarily a very lucrative business. So a publisher has to make a huge effort to publish a translation, which is often very expensive. The dedication and the fight for the free word and free ideas, for books that aren’t necessarily accessible or won’t immediately be accepted in the local culture – I find that extraordinary.’

 Jaap Robben’s trip was financed by the Travel Costs scheme. If you would like to invite a Dutch author to a literary event, you can apply for a subsidy through this scheme.