The Video as a Channel of Promotion and Canon Formation

With the media transition from the paper to the digital, the presence of contemporary Arab writers on the social media has increased and book-related videos have become a central strategy in self-promotion. These videos include book trailers, interviews, and artistic digital content. Besides this, international literary prizes produce their own videos, placing Arab writers on the global book market. For instance, the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) releases videos with English subtitles for the shortlisted authors every year. Finally, some writers and journalists have started TV programs or YouTube channels devoted to book recommendations and interviews. Engaging with literary history, media and translation studies, this paper aims at examining the impact of videos on the canonization of the contemporary Arabic novel: does the video expand or restrict the canon? Which are the linguistic strategies (MSA or vernacular) adopted in this medium? Which image of the intellectual does it shape, in respect with global trends and national literatures? This paper examines IPAF videos (2012-2018) to see how they promote on the global scale a very recent canon of novels through the representation of space, language, and the intellectual. Then it looks at two TV programs by the Egyptian writers Bilāl Faḍl and ʿUmar Ṭāhir, selecting three episodes (Faḍl 2011, Faḍl 2018, and Ṭāhir 2018a) featuring or devoted to Aḥmad Khālid Tawfīq (1962-2018), a successful author of science-fiction and thrillers. Debating non-canonical writing, these programs contribute to redefine the national reading practices and literary criticism.