Just did our first videocast university workshop, bringing together Suheir Hammad in New York and Hind al Husseiny college in Jerusalem.

Read the write-up on Al Quds University's home page here.

Rachel Holmes has returned from Birzeit brimming with enthusiasm about the first Palestine Writers Workshop. She's writing a blog about it now, but until then we've got the photos up here

PalFest is proud and delighted to announce its newest patron:  Philip Pullman.

The best-selling author of His Dark Materials joins Chinua Achebe, John Berger and Seamus Heaney in support of the festival. 

We all look forward very much to working with him. 

Suheir Hammad's Breaking Poems was recognised at this year's American Book Awards. Breaking Poems was one of twelve books awarded the prize, set up in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation to "recognize outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America's diverse literary community."

Read more here

In an event organised to support Palfest, the 23rd of September will see Raja Shehadeh in conversation with Kamila Shamsie at the Tabernacle, Notting Hill.

Check out their facebook group for more details.

Hope to see you there!

A PalFest exclusive: in 2008 Suheir wrote this poem for the closing night of the Festival. Since then, she has only performed it once more - in Ramallah for the '09 Festival.

So, due to popular demand - here it is:

Click through to our Videos page to see more

If you are a Palestinian student and attended one of the PalFest workshops we want to hear from you. Please click here to fill out on an online survey about how you found this year's workshops

The piece that PalFest author, Henning Mankell, wrote on return from the festival is now available in English, and you can read it here.

Our thanks to Robert Johnsson for his translation from the Swedish.

Several of the PalFest authors have written very interesting pieces about Palestine, the Festival and their experiences.

We have collected the links to them for you here, starting with the earliest:

For those of you who don't have twitter, you can now read the collected feed of the festival's posts on this site. We tried, in part, to show the physical difficulty of moving around Palestine. Have a look at it here.

The Israeli army has, again, tried to shut down PalFest's events in Jerusalem. Richard Makepeace, the British Consul, went to the theatre for an explanation of the army's actions. He was informed of a court order pinned to the door of the theatre. Having read it, he announced that the event would be held at the British Council. Download the press release here.

Though its impossible to show to extent of what's happening in al-Khalil / Hebron in a short video - it is a city that is vital to undestanding the occupation. We follow the PalFest group on a tour of the old city.

Students at the Arab American University in Jenin have written blogs about PALFEST's visit. Read them here.

We had promised to put one up every day, but as our authors were never given more than five minutes in between the workshops and the travel and the events, things fell a little behind. But now, we have blogs by Suheir Hammad, Henning Mankell and Michael Palin all up on the Author Blog page.

25.5.09 Suheir Hammad performance addded to Connect

A poem from Suheir Hammad's electric set at the Sakakini center tonight has been edited, uploaded and added to our Video Corner. Auhor blogs for days 2 and 3 are to follow very very soon.

23.5.09 Israeli army attempts, unsuccessfully, to shut down opening night

PALFEST 2009 has begun in pretty dramatic fashion. It took five hours to get everyone through the border and then the Israeli army tried, unsuccesfully, to shut down the opening event.For first hand details, our video of the day, and author blog are now up on connect....

19.5.09 Connect

We'd like to to highlight once more all the ways in which the audiences that we can't reach can connect with Palfest.

1. Author Blogs: each day a different author will write a blog about their experiences

2. Festival Blog: to fill you in on the day to day of the fest

3. Daily videos: we'll be putting out short, varied content every night

4. Photos: from each day will go up on our Flickr page

5. Twitter: we'll be bringing you live updates of all the action.

2.5.09 2009 Posters Unveiled

The grafitti is "7ayati 3azab" (my life is torture) a line from Um Kulsoum's famous Be3id 3annak

Both posters are available in high res in our Downloads section.

29.04.09 2008 Promo Online

The 2008 festival was documented by award-winning director Perry Ogden (Pavee Lackeen: The Traveller Girl) and producer Martina Niland (Once) - and they've cut together a short promo for us.

16.04.09 Press Release

“Thank you, dear friends, for your noble solidarity, thank you for your courageous gesture to break the moral siege inflicted upon us and thank you because you are resisting the invitation to dance on our graves. We are still here. We are still alive.” (Mahmoud Darwish, May 2008)
                                                         

The second Palestine Festival of Literature is announced today, taking place from 23rd-28th May 2009.
 
Because of the difficulties Palestinians face under military occupation in travelling around their own country, the Festival group of 17 international writers will travel to its audiences in the West Bank. It will tour to Ramallah, to Jenin, to al-Khalil/Hebron and to Bethlehem. To mark Jerusalem’s status as Cultural Capital of the Arab World for 2009, the festival will begin and end in Jerusalem.

Michael Palin will be taking part in the festival this year together with: Suad Amiry, Victoria Brittain, Carmen Callil, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Suheir Hammad, Nathalie Handal, Jeremy Harding, Rachel Holmes, Robin Yassin-Kassab, Brigid Keenan, Jamal Mahjoub, Henning Mankell (accompanied by his wife, Eva Bergman), Deborah Moggach, Claire Messud, Alexandra Pringle, Pru Rowlandson, Raja Shehadeh, Ahdaf Soueif and M G Vassanji.
 
The inaugural Palestine Festival of Literature in 2008 travelled to Jerusalem, Ramallah and Bethlehem reaching audiences of thousands.  Author Andrew O’Hagan, who was involved in the 2008 festival, says:

 “I had come as one of the writers attending the first ever Palestine Festival of Literature. Thousands of people turned out: they wanted to believe that Palestine is not just a cause but also a culture and a country, a place not simply for stone-throwing but for ideas and for modernity. 

Chair and Founder of PALFEST, Ahdaf Soueif says:

 “We were overwhelmed by the responses of both our audience and our authors last year; so we can't wait to go back. We found that Palestinian cities – even in the extraordinarily cruel circumstances in which they find themselves – manage to produce brilliant art and top class education. PALFEST aims to help them carry on doing that.”  

The Palestine Festival of Literature was inspired by the call of the late great Palestinian thinker, Edward Said, to “reaffirm the power of culture over the culture of power.”  The Festival Patrons are Chinua Achebe, John Berger, (the late) Mahmoud Darwish, Seamus Heaney and (the late) Harold Pinter.

PALFEST 09 is organized in Cooperation with Yabous Productions, and in partnership with the British Council.

Sandra Hamrouni, British Council, Director Palestinian Territories says:
“PALFEST is a remarkable initiative with great reach to bring people together through creativity and shared experience.  The British Council is pleased to support the Festival for the second year running, as part of the legacy of our New Writing Project which aims to create relationships and opportunities for collaboration between writers, readers, publishers and translators, in the Arab world and the UK.”
 
Rania Elias, Director, Yabous Productions Festival, says: 
"Palestinian life is jailed behind barriers, held up at checkpoints, but it insists on being part of the wider world; this is why the Palestine International Festival of Literature enjoyed packed houses last year. Yabous is delighted to be PALFEST's Palestinian partners for this year here in Jerusalem, the capital of Arab culture for 2009."

NOTES TO EDITORS

• For the full programme of events please visit www.palfest.org or use the contact details below.
• All events are free of charge.
• Engaged Events, the organizing body of the Palestine Festival of Literature, is a UK charity that conceives, organizes and promotes cultural events.
• Engaged Events is organizing the Palestine Festival of Literature 2009 in cooperation with Yabous Productions, a Palestinian non-profit organization based in Jerusalem working in performing arts.  
• The Palestine Festival of Literature will also have strong outreach and education components.  Authors will be meeting Palestinian writers, and will be visiting and reading in Aida camp in Bethlehem, as well as at local schools and universities, including the Arab American University in Jenin, and Hebron University.
• The Palestine Festival of Literature is supported by: The British Council, The Sigrid Rausing Charitable Fund, UNESCO and Royal Jordanian Airlines.
• The Festival also gratefully acknowledges the support of our private donors.
• Local Festival partners include; the Arab American University in Jenin; Birzeit University, The Freedom Theatre; the A M Qattan Foundation; Hebron Rehabilitation Committee; Hebron University; BADIL Resource Centre for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights in Bethlehem, Dar Annadwa in Bethlehem and Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre. 

The press release, in English and in Arabic, is available as a pdf in our Downloads section.