About Us

The Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest) is a cultural initiative committed to the creation of language and ideas for dismantling colonialism in the 21st century.

The festival was created as an act of cultural solidarity with Palestine by a group of international cultural figures brought together by Founding Chair, Ahdaf Soueif, in 2008. Since then PalFest has run an annual festival in which international authors combine with their Palestinian counterparts for free, public events in cities across Palestine. During the daytimes, visiting authors are taken to sites of historical and political relevance and meet with artists, authors and activists.

Our hope is that the experience of visiting Palestine with PalFest expands authors’ vocabulary and imagination, that they will draw connections between their own work and the various processes of control ongoing in Palestine.

Internationally, PalFest organises literary events in the UK and USA, publishes a weekly newsletter, promotes new writers and writing, and runs a book subscription program.

Our Partners شركاؤنا

Curators
Sharif Abdel Kouddous
Jehan Bseiso
Omar Robert Hamilton
Yasmin El-Rifae
Beesan Ramadan
Mahdi Sabbagh 

Director
Omar Robert Hamilton

Producer
Yasmin El-Rifae

Digital
Raed S

The Bookshelf
Rosie Warren

The Key
Sara Yasin

The Newsletter
Nicholas Glastonbury

Operations
Ismail Richard Hamilton

Photos
Rob Stothard

Videos
Hanan Abdalla

PalFest Logo
Jeff Fisher

Modern Slavery Declaration

This policy applies to all persons working for us or on our behalf in any capacity, including employees at all levels, directors, trustees, contractors and suppliers.

Modern slavery is a term used to encompass slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour, bonded and child labour and human trafficking. Human trafficking is where a person arranges or facilitates the travel of another person with a view to that person being exploited. Modern slavery is a crime and a violation of fundamental human rights.

Engaged Events (UK) Ltd strictly prohibits the use of modern slavery and human trafficking in our operations. We have and will continue to be committed to implementing systems and controls aimed at ensuring that modern slavery is not taking place anywhere within our organisation or in any of our supply chains.