欣赏较小的出版商：SAQI书籍

ProQuest图书馆服务副总裁Bob Nardini

Editor’s note:this is the latest blog post in aseries鲍勃·纳迪尼（Bob Nardini）讲述了较小的出版商在为图书馆带来各种内容中的关键作用。

Independent publishers share a strength in mission – but they also share the precariousness of running their business. Beyond the necessities of capital, staff, space, and the need to build name recognition from the ground, for a publisher immersed in the Arab world and dedicated to the free flow of ideas – a publisher that grew out of a Middle Eastern, London-based bookstore in 1979, and later opened another branch in Beirut – there might also be hate mail, embargoes, and even smashed windows for displaying Salman Rushdie’s撒旦经文.

That’s part of the remarkable story ofSAQI书籍.

萨奇的创始人安德烈·加斯帕德（AndréGaspard）和迈·乔格索布（Mai Ghoussoub）逃离了黎巴嫩的内战，没有在贸易方面的经验，当他们发现伦敦阿拉伯人社区没有任何语言的书籍时，他们开了一家书店。加斯帕德的妻子萨尔瓦回忆说：“我们渴望自己的文化。”1983年，萨克（Saqi）开始以英语出版英国的书籍。1990年，当他们在贝鲁特（Beirut）建立姊妹公司Dar al Saqi时，他们也成为了中东的出版商，这是他们作为童年朋友成长的城市。

不久之后，萨奇被公认为是研究阿拉伯和更广泛的穆斯林世界的基础作品的来源。Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in a Muslim Society和The Crusades through Arab Eyes例如，在OCLC的WorldCat上，有超过1,000个图书馆持有书籍。最近，狂热者：拿撒勒耶稣的生活和时代展示了Saqi的范围，并在早期的巴勒斯坦展现出独特的外观纽约时报'2014年最畅销的名单，并从纽约人as a “riveting biography.” A very different but equally surprising book is this year’s开罗的午夜：埃及咆哮的20多岁的女明星, a history that “delivers a place, time and people you’ll wish you’d personally known,” as thisTLS审稿人显然确实希望。

Saqi’s list in literature is strong as well.我会告诉你的事情：英国穆斯林妇女写信was a监护人2017年年度最佳书籍。2019年，SAQI出版了该季度, posthumous stories by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, a giant of Arabic literature.

Another star in the Saqi list is Nawal El Saadawi, feminist author and longtime Egyptian activist, praised by Margaret Atwood and scores of others – a writer once referred to as “the Simone de Beauvoir of the Arab world.” Saqi became her publisher in the 1980s and continued bringing out her books to the end of El Saadawi’s long career, includingZeina, the author’s final novel in 2019 before her death this year. ATLSreview of我们用符号写作：阿拉伯女性作家的爱与欲望, a Saqi book published just months ago, described this anthology of erotic writing as a book that “elevates self-assertive voices and banishes long-held silences.” A华盛顿邮报评论also offered praise for this “eye-opening collection,” a book likely to “shatter some assumptions about gender and sexuality in the Arab world.”

在2017年，对美国旅行禁令的一项回应是这本SAQI书：Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic: Words and Pictures on How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Alien Next Door. Edited by Lynn Gaspard, daughter of André and Salwa, this collection of comics, stories, essays, photographs and graffiti was a周日泰晤士报正如一位撰稿人所说，年度最佳幽默书《极端审查的个人指南》。如果这本书以及上面提到的其他书籍表明SAQI书籍可能是偶像塑形的，那是正确的。When a customer asks how to find the banned books section (the store doesn’t have one), Gaspard, who as a child played in the aisles of her parents’ store and today is Saqi London’s publisher, jokes that she then needs to ask which government the reader has in mind.

In some part this taboo-breaking spirit is the legacy of the late co-founder Ghoussoub, a writer, artist, and activist who was “a tour de force in Arab literature and letters,” according to the监护人的2007 obituary. Ghoussoub was a publisher who didn’t avoid topics such as gay and lesbian life, commissioning “a range of titles that few Arab publishers would dare to produce.” In all her work, said theNew York Timesupon Ghoussoub’s death, she “weaved together elements of her Arab heritage and an avant-garde sensibility to make bold, provocative statements.”

Saqi Books可以将同样的句子应用于她帮助找到的公司。如今，萨克（Saqi）已成为阿拉伯世界的主要出版商之一，这家书店是伦敦阿拉伯社区的地标，同时是世界各地游客的目的地。

Proquest很荣幸能在Rialto，Oasis和Libcentral上提供Saqi的印刷品和电子书。

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