Palestine Festival of Literature
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[edit] Palestine Festival of Literature
Begun in 2008, the Palestine Festival of Literature set out to bring a literary event of an international standard to the Palestinian people to assert "the power of culture over the culture of power." In recognition of how restricted movement is for Palestinians the Festival travels throughout Palestine, staging events in several cities.
Patrons of the Festival include Chinua Achebe, John Berger, Mahmoud Darwish,Seamus Heaney and Harold Pinter
It is supported by the British Council, UNESCO, the Arab Fund for Art and Culture, the Ford Foundation and the Sigrid Rousing Foundation among others.
The Guardian [1] reported that "the festival may become an annual event".
[edit] Inaugural Festival: 7 - 11 May 2008.
The cities the festival traveled to were Jerusalem, Ramallah and Bethlehem - while the authors also visited Hebron. The venues included: Dar al-Tifl (Jerusalem), Al-Kasaba Theatre (Ramallah), Dar Annadwa (Bethlehem) and the Palestine National Theatre (Jerusalem).
The authors also ran workshops with students at Bir Zeit University and Bethlehem University.
The 15 authors in attendance of the 2008 festival were: Daniel Alarcon, Mourid Barghouti, Victoria Brittain, William Dalrymple, Roddy Doyle, Esther Freud, Nathalie Handal, Suheir Hammad, Ian Jack, Brigid Keenan, Jamal Mahjoub, Pankaj Mishra, Andrew O’Hagan, Hanan al-Shaykh, Raja Shehada, Ahdaf Soueif
[edit] Useful Links
Official Website - includes photos, blog and press room.
Ahdaf Soueif in the Guardian (22.5.08)
Ian Jack in the Guardian (17.5.08)
