More for Arabs to read

In an earlier posting, I pointed out that Spain translates in one year the number of books that have been translated into Arabic in the last 1,000 years.
I was aware at the time that there is a project designed to address this and this week that project announced the first works that it will translate into Arabic. I very much welcome this project as helping international understanding and the dissemination of knowledge and culture.
The project is called Kalima (“word” in Arabic) and the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage is financing the translation and publishing exercise The project unveiled the first six translations this week and it aims to publish 100 books from 16 languages in its first year and 500 titles a year by 2010. The first six translations include “A Briefer History Of Time ” by Stephen Hawking [my review here]
You can find more details on the first books in the project here.