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, a fortnightly podcast, promotes new writers and writing, and runs a book subscription program. Our latest project is The Key, an online magazine.
Patrons
CHINUA ACHEBE
JOHN BERGER
MAHMOUD DARWISH
SEAMUS HEANEY
HAROLD PINTER
PHILIP PULLMAN
EMMA THOMPSON
Partners
RIAD KAMAL
Fadi & Amal Ghandour
Nabil Qaddumi
Katrina & Wendy vanden Heuvel
in honor of Jean Stein
Zina Jardaneh
Margo Viscusi
The Team
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
Bookshelf
Rosie Warren
The Key
Sara Yasin
Newsletter
Nicholas Glastonbury
Podcast
Ismail Richard Hamilton
Beesan Ramadan
Mirza Waheed
Photo
Rob Stothard
Josh Pacheco
Video
Hanan Abdalla
Ahmed al-Danaf
Murat Gokmen
Mai Saad
Kuba Sobieski
Joshua Van Praag
Posters
Muiz
Salma Shamel
The PalFest Logo
Jeff Fisher
Previous and Ongoing Collaborators & Curators
Walid Abu Al-Halaweh
Basma al-Sharif
Suad Amiry
Eyad Barghuthy
Christina Baum
Najwan Darwish
Wafa Darwish
Ray Dolphin
Haidar Eid
FMcM
Hussam Ghosheh
Umar al-Ghubari
Léa Hamilton
Paola Handal
Budour Hassan
Nada Hegazy
Rasha Hilwi
Emily Jacir
Yazan Khalili
Rania K
Safwan al-Masri
Eleanor O’Keefe
Tania Nasir
Ebaa Rezeq
Hakim Sabbah
Mariam Said
Raja Shehadeh
Adania Shibli
Reem Shilleh
Basima Takrori
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.