The number of Arabic works available in the English language is woefully small - but all that could be about to change soon, writes Mary Russell

IN A LEAGUE TABLE of who speaks what language, English comes in at number one with an estimated 750 million people speaking it either as a first or second language. Down the line at number six, with 300 million speakers, is Arabic, an interesting fact when you consider that, up to the Renaissance, Arab scholars led the field in literature, philosophy, science and law, an achievement reflected in the many Arabic words, including zenith, nadir and alchemy, that have taken their place on the linguistic stage.

The stone on which is engraved the complex laws of the great Hammurabi, the 6th ruler of Babylon - which are among the first laws to be recorded - can be seen at the Louvre, while a copy of it is displayed, perhaps ironically, in the US House of Representatives.

Moving forward in time, there is the marvellous homoerotic poet at the Baghdadi court of Haroun al Rashid - Abu Nawas - whose poetry is as humorous as it is confrontational and which makes entertaining reading, considering he was a not too devout Muslim who enjoyed wine and found it hard to choose between comely maidens and beautiful young boys (the boys won). The Arab world was one in which mathematical magic could encircle emptiness, in which the concept of nothingness as a number - cipher or zero - was developed and given a shape: 0. It was a world in which, heretically for Europeans, oceans curved away below the horizon and where poets drew words out of the air like threads of shimmering silk; a world in which intricate patterns of tessellating tiles expanded ever outwards into a universe whose boundaries, to this day, still remain unexplored.

Yet despite this early flowering, the number of Arabic works, both classical and modern, translated into English is woefully small a fact that was noted at the recent London Book Fair (LBF), whose focus this year was on Arab writing. Present at the fair was Egyptian Baha Taher, whose novel Sunset Oasis won this year's Arabic Booker prize. With him was Syrian film- maker Khaled Khalifa, whose novel In Praise of Hate, though shortlisted for the Arabic Booker, is banned in Damascus.

"This is not a big problem," he told me cheerfully. "You just drive to Beirut and get it there." However, his hope is that now he has been shortlisted, he will be published in English.

Other writers such as Libyan Hisham Matar (In the Country of Men) and Egyptian Alaa al Aswany (The Yacoubian Building) have been luckier in that their novels have already been translated, for it is the actual process of translation that's often the stumbling block to publication.

Hartmut Faehndrich, German translator of Libyan Ibrahim Al Koni, winner of this year's prestigious Sheik Zayed prize, says: "I spend a great deal of time with the writers, especially with Al Koni, so that I understand not just the words but the meaning behind them," Faehndrich told me. "Sometimes, it's something basic we have to discuss such as a reference to someone passing the evening on a roof. For a European used to sloping roofs, that's confusing."

Significantly, it was Al Koni's talk at the LBF which was one of the most electric. A Tuareg raised in the Libyan desert, he advances the idea that only in the desert is it possible to live a spiritual life, a theory beloved of orientalists but which promoted lively and dissenting debate among Arab urbanites.

The list of Arab writers present at the LBF was impressive but also frustrating, since so few of them are translated into English. Chairing one of the sessions was Egyptian academic and writer Radwa Ashour, wife of Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti, whose next volume of poetry is out in the autumn. Arab women, in particular, have problems getting published, Ashour told a packed audience, because their subject matter may be considered taboo or too domestic to be important. To counteract this, they often have to self-publish or emigrate.

Maggie Obank, founder of the British Council-backed Arab literary magazine Banipal, welcomes the upsurge of interest in Arab literature, pointing out that there is now a wealth of English-speakers who have studied Arabic and who can be trained in the complex art of translating.

But while many people want to read more Arab writers in English, the traffic going the other way is so lamentable that the recently-formed Abu Dhabi-based Kalima initiative has embarked on a project to make world classics available in Arabic. Karim Nagy, chief executive of Kalima, maintains Arabs have been starved of the classics because so few of them are ever translated into Arabic, which is still considered a minority language.

The project has earmarked 100 important works which will be translated and published, of which 54 are from the English, seven from Latin and four from ancient Greek, with other translations from the main European languages as well as Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Yiddish.

"We had a selection process whereby we looked at great works and prize winners," explains Nagy. "Then we cross-checked to see if any titles had already been translated and, if so, how good the translation was. Kalima's purpose is to begin filling the gaps in the Arab library, which lags behind those in the rest of the world." This means that students in places such as Abu Dhabi, the Gulf, Egypt and further afield will be able to read translations of such works as the complete collection of Horace's Odes, Milton's Paradise Regained as well as those by Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Jacques Lacan. Inevitably, however, this is an eclectic choice which explains the presence of Francois Truffaut, AJP Taylor and Pippi Longstocking. And this list is just for starters. Next year will see a further 100 titles published. Joyce's Ulysses has already been translated into Arabic but Kalima intends to look at his other works for inclusion.

Abu Dhabi, the richest of the Emirates, is a big player in the literature stakes, last year introduced a major prize, the Sheik Zayed Book Award, named after the principal architect of the United Arab Emirates. Rashed Al Oraimi, general secretary of the award, outlined its nine categories, which include literature, children's literature and translation. "The prize money," he told me, "totals 7 million UAE Dirhams (€1,196,770) with the funding coming from the country's Authority for Culture and Heritage." Added to this, there will also be a major book fair in Abu Dhabi city next year.

With all this activity in the Emirates (Dubai is host to the Middle East's first ever literary festival next year), it seems that an Arab language renaissance may well be on the way. In Ireland, the Arab writer to watch is Palestinian Israeli Sayeed Kashua, whose novel Let It Be Morning has been shortlisted for the Impac Award. Interestingly, Kashua wrote his novel in Hebrew.