Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, is a sponsor of the Palestine Writes Literature Festival! The festival will take place September 22-24, 2023, at the University of Pennsylvania.
As the organizers note:
Palestine Writes is the only North American literature festival dedicated to celebrating and promoting cultural productions of Palestinian writers and artists. Born from the pervasive exclusion from or tokenization of Palestinian voices in mainstream literary institutions, Palestine Writes brings Palestinian cultural workers from all parts of Historic Palestine and our exiled Diaspora together with peers from other marginalized groups in the United States. Crossing multiple borders—geographic, linguistic, and cultural boundaries—writers, artists, publishers, booksellers, scholars, musicians, and thinkers hold conversations about art, literature, and the intersections between culture and power, struggle, politics, climate change, sexuality, human rights, animal rights, food sovereignty, and more. The festival boasts panel discussions, workshops, music, children’s programming, networking, readings, dance, theatre, cooking, oral storytelling, cooking, and other creative expressions of culture.
Speakers include Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen, Arabic Booker Prize winner Ibrahim Nasrallah, celebrated filmmaker Darin Sallam, rock music legend Roger Waters, and dozens more renowned authors, such as Elias Khoury, Huzama Habayeb, Isabella Hammad, Sahar Mustafah, Suad Amiry, Salman AbuSitta, Gary Younge, Nur Masalha, and more.
The festival will be bilingual, with simultaneous translation for most sessions. The program and speaker list are published online, featuring 1) continuous children and YA programming; 2) Coffee & Books sessions; 3) Panel discussions; 4) Plenaries; 5) Hakawati oral storytelling; 6) An art exhibit; 7) Workshops; 8) Presentations; 9) A film screening, and; 10) Live performances.
Get tickets and see the whole program of the festival at: palestinewrites.org
