It is with great excitement that I discovered the existence of the Palestinian Festival of Literature -although I also found out the Festival has been on since 2009 and had received a huge press coverage.

The aim of the festival is to bring world class cultural events to Palestinian cities, giving Palestinian youth access to the finest authors. In 2010, the festival toured to Jerusalem, Nablus, Jenin, Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah.

Partners to this event include A.M Qattan foundation, the British Council, the Annal Lindh Foundation, Sigrid Rausin trust, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture.
Previous participants to this event include: Khalid Abdalla, Esther Freud, Claire Messud, Susan Abulhawa, Abdulrazak Gurnah,,Pankaj Mishra, Suad Amiry, Suheir Hammad, Deborah Moggach, Mourid Barghouti, Nathalie Handal, Andrew O’Hagan, Victoria Brittain, Jeremy Harding, Michael Palin, Carmen Callil, Selina Hastings, Eugene Schoulgin, William Dalrymple, Rachel Holmes, Hanan al-Shaykh, Najwan Darwish, Ian Jack, Raja Shehadeh, Roddy Doyle, Remi Kanazi, Ahdaf Soueif, Geoff Dyer, Brigid Keenan, M.G. Vassanji, Jillian Edelstein, Jamal Mahjoub, Robin Yassin-Kassab, Adam Foulds, Henning Mankell, Amir Nizar-Zuabi   

Next edition is to be held in April 2011. The program hasn’t been disclosed yet, but we’ll keep you posted. You can also follow the Festival on twitter: @PalFest.