CAIRO: In the wake of a decision by Egyptian censors this week to ban “Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution, a book by British journalist John R. Bradley, numerous theories have been making the rounds in Cairo as to the reason behind the act.
In an email interview from London, Bradley revealed to Daily News Egypt what he believed to be the truth about why book had been banned.
For the last couple months, Bradley had been trying to get information from his publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, about the book’s availability in Egypt, prompted by several emails from people living here asking why they could not buy it in Cairo.
At first, the publisher attributed the delay to the practicalities of printing and distributing the title.
“I was told that this is a typically slow process: the book gets printed in New York and distributed in the United States and Canada in the first instance, then gets shipped to the UK, and only then is distributed around the world, Bradley told Daily News Egypt.
Because pre-orders outside of the US and UK were strongest in Asia – particularly Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia – the UK office had sent their first batch of overseas copies to that region, instead of the Middle East.
By coincidence, just when the Middle East batch was about to be shipped, Daily News Egypt ran a review of the book in the July 15 issue.
Palgrave Macmillan’s regional representative contacted the book buyer at the American University in Cairo’s bookstore, alerting him to the review and the coverage the book had already generated globally.
“The buyer agreed to order 50 copies, and my editor emailed me to let me know, Bradley explained.
However, a few hours later he received another email, this one telling him that the order had been cancelled: The bookseller had told the publisher he’s just been told that the government censors had banned the title from being imported and sold locally.
Bradley said the decision to ban “Inside Egypt is “unethical and irrational, pointing to the extensive coverage it has received in the Arabic- and English-language media. But it may have some positive consequences the Egyptian government did not foresee.
“If its aim was to stop people from getting to know about ‘Inside Egypt,’ the regime could not have made a bigger mistake, Bradley said.
“The initial print run in hardback was 30,000, and the publisher had little expectation that the book would be reprinted before the paperback appears next year. Now they are expecting me to sell twice that number in hardback alone, he said.
