East-West Divan: In Memory of Werner Mark Linz

By El Hassan bin Talal

This collection of scholarly essays on Egyptian culture, history, society, archeology, literature, art, and conservation is published in memory of Werner Mark Linz, who spent much of the latter part of his professional life as the Director of the American University in Cairo Press. East-West Divan is the first volume of the Gingko Library, a publishing project that embraces scholarship from both East and West, conceived by Werner Mark Linz to foster greater cross-cultural understanding. Among the contributors to this collection are the Egyptian novelist Alaa Al Aswany, author of The Yacoubian Building; Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass; the renowned Swiss theologian, Hans Küng; the author of the acclaimed A Fort of Nine Towers, Qais Akbar Omar; and Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gingko
• Release date: Jul 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781909942035

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The Life of a Passionate Publisher

Peter Clark

Mark Linz, who died in London at the age of 77, was one of the most influential publishers in the Arab world. He transformed the American University in Cairo (AUC) Press into a house with an international reputation.

Werner Mark Linz was born in Cologne in 1935 and started to work for Herder in Freiburg and Frankfurt, where he went to his first Frankfurt Book Fair in 1954. He moved to the United States in 1960, becoming a naturalised United States citizen.

He worked with McGraw-Hill, the Seabury Press and Continuum Publishing, where he published writings by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger. He specialised in educational publishing and building up international contacts in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East. He was one of the leading figures in the New York publishing world, but in the 1980s he began the venture that he will be best remembered for. In 1984 he became Director of the American University in Cairo Press, first for two years, and then from 1995 until 2011.

The American University in Cairo was founded in 1919 and the Press in 1960. The Press was a service for the University, but during Mark’s time as Director, the Press vastly increased its number and range of publications. Most significantly, he did more than any other publisher to make contemporary Arabic literature available to the rest of the world. With great foresight, he signed in 1985 a foreign rights agreement with the Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz. Three years later, Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize for Literature. There were then only seven or eight of his titles available in English. Under Mark’s direction, the AUC Press took on the task of disseminating Mahfouz’s work for the world. It licensed the translation of his novels into 40 languages, from Chinese to Croatian. All Mahfouz’s work was translated and published. When Mark returned to Cairo in 1995 he collaborated with Mahfouz to establish the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, an annual literary prize, with a guarantee of the winning work’s translation and publication in English. He also expanded the programme of translation of Arabic literature from all Arab countries into English. Working with Cairo-based translators of the calibre of Denys Johnson-Davies and Humphrey Davies, he brought out in the following years over 150 works by over 100 writers from all parts of the Arab world.

Mark was a shrewd and effective businessman who was familiar with all aspects of publishing. Genial and generous to his staff, always with a twinkle in his eye, he enjoyed life and loved Egypt, commissioning guide books and histories of his adoptive country. As one of his Cairo colleagues has said, ‘Mark’s passion for life, publishing and everything bubbled constantly from an unstoppable well-spring: his extraordinary energy often left younger folk like me lagging behind and gasping, and he could see a publishing opportunity at 100 paces and sign the deal before the rest of us had put our glasses on.’

He retired from the AUC Press at the end of 2011, at the age of 76, but continued to be in demand for advice and consultancies. One major project Mark negotiated, just three months before his death, was, in consultation with Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, for the translation and publication in English of a library of 100 volumes of Thought.

When he passed away in February 2013 he bequeathed to the friends who mourned him this idea of a Library of Thought; a series of dialogues, publications and translations in ten subject areas ranging from history and the arts to literature and current affairs. The Gingko Library is meant to realise this grand plan and hopes to continue Mark Linz’s work of building bridges across cultural, religious and language divides, both between and within Orient and Occident, thereby building a lasting memorial to the great publisher he was. The first volume will be a commemorative publication for Werner Mark Linz and will be called East-West Divan, a reference to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s great salute to Islamic culture. It aims to introduce the ten subject areas he identified in his original proposal for the Library of Thought (now the Gingko Library), as well as making a scholarly contribution to the advancement of knowledge about Egypt, his adoptive home in the final phase of his life.

We Need Bridge-Builders – No Survival for the World Without a Global Ethic

Hans Küng

Hans Küng is a Swiss Catholic Priest, theologian and author. He has been President of the Foundation for a Global Ethic since 1995. He wrote of Mark after his death: ‘I have known Mark since his early days at the Herder in Freiburg and Herder in New York. We cooperated together for the concilium when he established his own company with Crossroads and Continuum. Finally, I remember the happy days with him in Cairo in 2007 when I was able to present my big volume on Islam, published by AUC Press, at the American University in Cairo and at the Egyptian Academy of Sciences and to many journalists. Mark Linz was a passionate publisher with a wide horizon, and we had much in common in our convictions and adventures. I will miss him very much…’

Through his companies Crossroad and Continuum, Mark Linz published a number of works by Hans Küng over the years. It was during this time that the author developed his seminal concept of the ‘Global Ethic’, which became so central to his thought and work. He discusses how the concept was coined in his memoirs:

On the 17 March [1991] I flew from San Diego to New York. WERNER MARK LINZ, my publisher, was waiting to receive me. I took part in the Candlelight Vespers at the Cathedral of St John the Divine. After that followed my lecture on the topic of world ethics: ‘Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic’. This is also the English title of my book Projekt Weltethos. The new term ‘World Ethic’, however, does not catch on so I adopt the synonym ‘Global Ethic’.

Although Mark later shifted his focus away from New York and toward the AUC Press in Cairo, his friendship and collaboration with Hans Küng continued. As discussed in the extract below, Mark published Islam: Past, Present and Future through AUC Press in 2007. Mark’s move east opened up new possibilities for both author and publisher to build bridges of discourse and cooperation between different cultures, East and West:

It was going to take ten years from the publication of the first two volumes about Judaism (1991) and Christianity (1994) until I was able to publish the results of my historical-systematic studies in a third volume of my trilogy entitled: Islam: Past, Present and Future. I launched the book on 6 October 2004 at the Frankfurt Book Fair, in a joint public dialogue with my friend AHMED KAMAL ABOULMAGD, Professor of Law at the University of Cairo. The Arab Pavilion is overflowing with a mostly Arab audience, as the Arab World is the market focus of this year’s book fair. We are introduced by IBRAHIM EL MOALLEM, the president of the Arab Publishers Association. In the discussion we agree that Muslims and Christians are both confronted by the central question, how to emerge from the Middle Ages and tackle modernity, although both religions at least concur on the essential ethical message. In 2007 the Middle East edition of the book is published in the English language by the American University in Cairo Press; this was commissioned by my friend, the American publisher WERNER MARK LINZ, whom I had worked well with in the past. On this occasion Ibrahim El Moallem surprises me with a small collection of my lectures and essays on Islam and World Ethos called ‘Shared Ethical Values of Religion’, which he had had translated into Arabic.

Below, Professor Hans Küng recalls ‘happy days’ spent with Mark in Cairo. The programme for the launch of Islam: Past, Present and Future is a real tribute to Mark’s passion for his work, his commitment to his authors, and the respect in which he was held by his peers:

On the occasion of the launch the publisher in Cairo had organised a highly intensive programme for me between 30 November and 4 December 2007. It starts with an interview with the leading Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahramand a reception hosted by the Swiss Ambassador. What follows over the next few day is: a conversation with Professor MAHMOUD ZAKZOUK, Minister for Religious Affairs, whom I have known for a long time, about the state of religion in Egypt. Then, a public lecture at the American University in Cairo entitled ‘Challenges to Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in Today’s Global Crises’. The next thing is a seminar with students. Of particular interest for me is an ‘Interfaith Colloquium’ on the theme of the book Islam, in which over 50 professors and experts participate. On all of these occasions I meet great goodwill and encounter no difficulties worth mentioning. The press coverage both in the English as well as the Arabic media is overwhelming, possibly also due to the number of interviews I