Book translation scheme launched

Dubai: The Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation has launched the Tarjem programme designed to translate the world's bestsellers into Arabic.

The programme targets a book a day, translating 1,000 books within the next three years.

Inspired by the vision of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, Tarjem, which means translate, will facilitate the translation of 365 best-selling books into Arabic this year alone.

With effective management considered an essential prerequisite to development in the Arab world, nearly 50 per cent of the translated books will deal with management related topics.

Ambitious

While 25 per cent of the programme will be allocated to literary books, the remainder will cover miscellaneous titles such as human sciences, history and philosophy.

Yasser Hareb, Vice-President for Culture at the foundation, said Tarjem was an ambitious programme aimed at enhancing knowledge transfer to the region. It re-establishes the role of translation as an important tool in facilitating inter-cultural dialogue, while seeking to educate and inform the rest of the world about the Arab region's modern and classical thought processes.