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Bookworms Few and Far Between in Tunis

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A street vendor selling books in Tunis. Image credit: Asma Smadhi, Tunisia Live.

A street vendor selling books in Tunis. Image credit: Asma Smadhi, Tunisia Live.

A bystander reading a book while waiting for the metro or the bus, often a lengthy ordeal, is an odd scene in Tunisia.

To be engrossed in a novel at a coffee shop, a normal scene in many countries, garners stares and comments from bystanders. While many Tunisians read newspapers daily, books are not as popular and bookstores or libraries, where they exist, struggle.

Tunisia’s literacy rate is 79.1 percent, according to Unesco. Rural literacy is lower than in urban areas and women often have it worse, but in cities like the capital, reasons vary for the low popularity of books.

“It is clear and widely seen that books have been deserted,” Nejib Marzouki, a high school teacher and who happens to be the brother of the Tunisian president, told Tunisia Live while shopping at the Al Kitab bookstore in Tunis. “Book lovers have become a breed that is vanishing and dispersing, going extict.”

Booksellers in downtown Tunis unanimously agreed with Marzouki, but provided different explanations for the phenomenon.

Khaled, who has been selling secondhand books for more than two decades in a small unnamed shop on Dabbaghine street in downtown Tunis, said declining book sales are related to low incomes in Tunisia.

Khaled at his bookshop in downtown Tunis. Image credit: Asma Smadhi, Tunisia Live

Man stands at bookshop in downtown Tunis. Image credit: Asma Smadhi, Tunisia Live

“If a Tunisian had money, he would buy books. He is passionate [about books], but books have become expensive,” he said. A book in his store costs about five to ten dinar ($3-6).

Chedli Ben Othmane of the Tunisian Book Center, who is currently supervising a week-long book fair called “The Spring of the Tunisian Book” in downtown Tunis, agreed with Khaled.

While Tunisians would like to read, they are already struggling to make ends meet, let alone to buy books, Ben Othmane said.

Book fair in downtown Tunis. Image credit: Asma Smadhi, Tunisia Live

Book fair in downtown Tunis. Image credit: Asma Smadhi, Tunisia Live

“We can never finish what we want to read, the list is always long,” Afef, a 24-year-old architecture student, said while window shopping at Al Kitab, where books are triple the price or more of those in Khaled’s shop.

Kamel Hmaidi, who works at Al Kitab, one of Tunis’ most famous bookstores, blames Tunisia’s history of authoritarian regimes, who censored books before the 2011 revolution, for their weak role in society.

“Many historical factors [to the decrease in book reading] are related to the policies of [Habib] Bourguiba and [Zine el-Abidine] Ben Ali, especially Ben Ali’s era where there was an inclination towards the desiccation of the intellect and ideas,” Hmaidi said.

Under the rule of autocrat Ben Ali, who was toppled in the 2011 revolution, thousands of books on various subjects were censored, according to Hmaidi. Even a cookbook was once banned, he recalled.

Hmaidi said after the revolution there was a resurgent interest in history books.

“There is a new demand after the revolution for anything related to history,” he said.

Many young Tunisians are more inclined to more modern means of communication, still there is some interest in buying and reading books.

Amal Zayani, 20, was more keen on reading English-language books and said there should be campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of books.

In 2012, during what was called “The Avenue Reads,” Tunisians hit Avenue Bourguiba with their books and spent an hour reading. The event, according to the Facebook page, was a silent demonstration to prove Tunisians are a “people who read.”

“For he who does not read,” organizers wrote, “does not change history.”

A street vendor selling books in Tunis. Image credit: Asma Smadhi, Tunisia Live.

A street vendor selling books in Tunis. Image credit: Asma Smadhi, Tunisia Live.

The post Bookworms Few and Far Between in Tunis appeared first on Tunisia Live.


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