Text on television

A handout photo of Wonho Chung (left) in Saq Al Bamboo. (Courtesy: MBC)

To encourage people to read literary works, more dramatisation of serious books helps

When the Kuwaiti novelist Saud ­Alsanousi four years ago published Saq Al Bamboo (The Bamboo Stalk) – which depicts the lives of foreign workers in this region and confronts the issues of identity, race and religion – it immediately felt like an important book. So it wasn’t a surprise when it won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (Ipaf) in 2013. The award helped the novel reach a wider audience through translations.

More encouragingly, the book has gone from being a serious novel to a television show. As our Arts&Life section has reported, it is ­turning out to be a socially relevant and exceptionally produced series that is going to keep viewers riveted throughout Ramadan.

It would be great to see more of these meaningful Arabic writings being turned into TV shows. In a television landscape littered with music and soap operas, such programmes would bring a gust of fresh air, while also encouraging people to read the original books.