Palestine Festival of Literature

'The Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest)' is an annual literary festival that takes place in cities across Palestine and Israel.

The festival was founded in 2008 with the stated mission of affirming "the power of culture over the culture of power" and breaking what it considers a cultural siege against Palestine. The festival's founding chair is the novelist and political commentator Ahdaf Soueif.

In an effort to overcome restrictions on Palestinians' freedom of movement the festival travels to its audiences, putting on free events in Arabic and English in the cities it travels to. The festival traditionally performs in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Haifa and Nablus. Because travel to Gaza is so restricted a small, separate festival is organised there. PalFest 2012 took place exclusively in Gaza.

Patrons of the festival have included Chinua Achebe, John Berger, Mahmoud Darwish, Seamus Heaney, Harold Pinter, Philip Pullman and Emma Thompson.

Participants have included Michael Ondaatje, Alice Walker, Raja Shehadeh, Michael Palin, Suad Amiry, Henning Mankell, Taha Muhammad Ali, Geoff Dyer, Suheir Hammad, Claire Messud, Pankaj Mishra, Gary Younge, Richard Ford and many others.

Visiting author China Miéville said the festival is "not only the most powerful and important literary festival it's ever been my privilege to attend, it's one of the most powerful and important things I've experienced, full stop

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Wikipedia