A group of young Arab men resident in Malmo, Sweden, have established ‘Hekayh’ (www.hekayh.com), a new digital store to sell Arabic books. The venture has been conceived to meet the needs of the large number of Arab communities in Scandinavian countries, in particular in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
Lunched in collaboration with publishing houses from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the digital store is stocking 1,000 books as a first step, with 20-30 new books being added every day. The range of material available will comprise predominantly educational and literary books that are judged to be of interest to the Arab diaspora residing in Northern Europe.
In an effort to facilitate the promulgation of Arabic literature internationally, the store gives authors who are unable to publish their books through publishing houses in the Arab world the opportunity to publish them as e-books that can be accessed by readers from across the world. The digital store also aims to bring out books in other languages in the near future.