Curious Chat #01 with Yasmina Jraissati
A pioneering literary agent on building bridges, worrying about lost curiosity, and her realization that nobody has to be curious about anything.
Photo of Yasmina Jraissati courtesy of ArabLit Credit: Jacob Russell
Welcome to the inaugural edition of Curious Chat!
I don’t recall how I first came across Yasmina Jraissati, but I do recall instantly having a career crush. Not in a weird or jealous way, but in that particular way where the drive she exudes for her work is so energizing that it makes you pause for a moment and wonder if maybe she’s found the perfect career, and perhaps it’s time for you to hop on-board, too. But then you take a deep breath, remind yourself that we can’t all do the same thing, and you realize that it’s not the career that’s providing Yasmina’s energy — it’s her curiosity; that fire inside of her is what’s propelling her work forward. Essentially, she’s the one bringing the magic to her career; not the other way around.
I refer to her career, singular, but in Yasmina’s case I should really be using the plural — careers. She’s been a multi-hyphenate since before multi-hyphenate careers became trendy. With roles as a literary agent, the founder of RAYA agency, a publishing manager at Storytel, and an academic, I asked Yasmina how she describes all of the different hats she wears: “I build bridges between great Arabic books and the rest of the world,” she said, perfectly succinctly. (As someone known for being too verbose, I aspire to such succinctness.)
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, and raised with a love of books, the idea of using literature as a bridge had long been percolating inside. But it wasn’t until 2001 when she was living in New York City during the 9/11 attacks that she felt an urgency to build that first bridge. “I felt like something needed to be done with Arabic literature,” she recently told the Make Books Travel podcast.
“I wanted it to be more available. I felt like people needed to know more about who we were. Our voices — “the moderates” — [weren’t] heard at all. The only images you [got] from the Arab region, which is still true today, unfortunately, is through wars. There was a gap between Arabic literature, and the rest of the world’s literature.”
This gap (and a helpful nudge from a friend) is what led Yasmina to found the Beirut and Paris-based RAYA agency for Arabic literature in 2004. Becoming a literary agent allowed her to work with published Arabic authors who were ready to sell their translation and adaption rights worldwide. The West was already used to reading translated works from Nordic authors, European authors, and Asian authors — why not also Arabic authors? Despite sounding obvious, it was a pioneering move at the time and, nearly 20 years on, Yasmina’s agency is still blazing its own trail.
As one of the only literary agents actively working to get Arab authors translated beyond their own borders, Yasmina’s never lost sight of her guiding aim — to get Arabic literature into the hands of non-Arabic speakers. In an interview with Arablit, she said:
“I felt it was a thing to do because people didn’t know us, but at the same time, even if they wanted to know us, they had no way to get to know us in the way that I think is interesting, which is literature [because of the language barrier]. I felt like literature needed to travel more.”
Although the path hasn’t been straightforward, RAYA has had great success sending translated Arabic works around the world. Two particularly successful exports have been award-winning Syrian author, Samar Yazbek, and Khaled Khalifa, also Syrian, who has been translated into more than 18 languages so far.
Interest in Arab literature has increased over her years as an agent, but Jraissati’s concern is that this interest is often tied to current events — like the Syrian war, for example, and the success of her Syrian authors. Important as these events are, they’re not advancing the Western narrative of the region, and that’s what Yasmina would ultimately like to see. “It’s great that people show interest [in a country],” she told the Make Books Travel podcast.
“But I’m always afraid. It [war] shouldn’t be the only way, and the only reason. Because this kind of interest is bound to fade. We need to be able to recognize the value of the literature itself, and not just in connection to world events. That’s always been my struggle.”
Not content to only build one bridge through her work at RAYA, Yasmina also works as Storytel’s publishing manager in Dubai for the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. By handling the acquisition and licensing deals for Storytel’s audiobooks in Arabic, she’s building a second bridge. This one is bridging a gap in the Arab community between spoken Arabic, and the more formal written Arabic. Audiobooks offer Arabic speakers the opportunity to celebrate the many dialects spoken in the region, as well as provide a way to engage new audiences with Arabic literature they may have previously found daunting to read.
Needless to say, it’s clear that Yasmina has endless amounts of curiosity driving her goals forward, so I was thrilled when she agreed to be part of Curious Chat.
So, over to Yasmina…
(A quick note on format: a few of Yasmina’s answers are one-word responses, and that’s because of how I formatted the interview. In hindsight, that’s a flaw, and I will work on fixing that with future guests.)
Do you consider yourself a curious person?
Yes, definitely.
How does curiosity play a role in the work that you do?
Books that pique my curiosity are the ones I am most eager to check out — and potentially represent. As a literary agent, this is the most important indicator for me. But in general, when things don't work out the way I want or expect them to, then I will dig.
In general, does curiosity begin on a micro or a macro level for you?
Micro. Definitely. I get strongly caught by a random detail that leads to questions until these suddenly open up on a world I didn't suspect. These are my favorite discoveries.
Do you consider curiosity an essential building block in your personal well-being?
Yes.
What are you currently most curious about, and how do you explore this curiosity?
Things I am curious about tend to be very determined in time span, and very connected to the things that I do when I do them. So for example, now I am curious about you :) Why did you start this project? Why the angle of curiosity specifically? What do you do? WHO ARE YOU?
(Note: this response was completely unexpected, and made me feel a bit like an International Woman of Mystery when I read it.)
When you dismiss something as "uninteresting", do you then take a minute to reflect on why you're not curious about it?
Yes. And to expand, when I dismiss something as uninteresting, especially in conversation, I will, half the time, wonder what is wrong with me (before sometimes deciding it's not me). I will in these cases worry, Oh my god! Is that it? Is my curiosity dead for good now? Have I completely lost interest??
Do you experience curiosity as mainly intrinsically motivated, or extrinsically motivated?
I would say that it is always something external that excites my curiosity, but this can happen when I'm on my own, walking, reading, watching, listening, or when I'm with people and someone says something, or reacts in a certain way etc.
Have you experienced a time when you lost touch with your own curiosity, and had to work to get it back?
Yes.
What do you wish more people were curious about?
I have no opinion. For me it's a very personal matter. At least, this is how I feel now. When I first started with RAYA agency for Arabic literature, I so wished people were more genuinely curious about who we (Arabs) were; about what our books were like. Now, my views on curiosity have shifted, and I feel it's part of my (our) job to interest people if we want them to be interested. Nobody has to be curious about anything — if that makes sense.
Do you have a "guilty curiosity"?
Of course :) It often revolves around what I should have said or done, and what the impact of what I did say, or do, is. It's unhealthy and useless. Hence guilty curiosity.
A special thank you to Yasmina Jraissati for being brave enough to go first! Some of her responses got me thinking, and I’ll pick those up in a future Substack post. Until then, let me know in the comments on Substack what you found interesting!
Also, there are so many additional dimensions to Yasmina and her work, so I encourage you to explore some of the links scattered throughout. And for the Arabic speakers here, (I know there are a few of you!), do check out Storytel’s range of Arabic audiobooks here.
If you enjoyed this first installment of Curious Chat, I’d love it if you’d share it with a few friends who might also enjoy a bit of curiosity in their inbox!
There’s more writing over on the Curious Ones Substack, so join the community there, too!