Palestine Writes Literature Festival: Indigenous Stories of a Fabled Homeland
- Huda Fakhreddine and Palestine Writes
- Cinema and Media Studies Program, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC), Kelly Writers House, Middle East Center, Palestine Writes, School of Arts & Sciences, Wolf Humanities Center
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Community Partnerships Grant
Art by Taqi Sapateen
The 2023 Palestine Writes festival will convene a host of writers, artists, publishers, booksellers, and scholars to read, present, and discuss the intersections between literature and struggle, society, politics, social and environmental justice, and ethics. Hosting the festival on the Penn campus is an opportunity to foster connections between the university and the Palestinian community in the city and open the campus to the larger Arab and immigrant communities in the Greater Philadelphia area. Palestine Writes is the only North American literature festival dedicated to the celebration and support of Palestinian literature and the arts. It was started by a group of writers and scholars under the leadership of Susan Abulhawa in response to the prevailing exclusion or tokenization of Palestinians in mainstream cultural institutions. The first iteration of this festival was a groundbreaking moment for Palestinian writers and artists who have struggled to showcase the richness of a culture that is largely misunderstood, even demonized, in popular American imagination. Palestine Writes is one of the few, if not only, spaces where Palestinian writers can have cultural agency, where they can meet each other, despite their exile and fragmentation, meet non-Palestinian cultural workers who’ve stood in solidarity with them, and meet new readers and consumers of culture. The 2023 Palestine Writes festival will bring this international flavor to Philadelphians, where local cultural groups and artists are also part of the program.