Palestinian Festival of Literature to tour

PalFest will also feature a children\'s festival The 6th Palestinian Festival of Literature (PalFest) was announced on Thursday. The festival will take place in various cities across Palestine between May 23-31. This year, PalFest will consist of two groups of travelling authors: one in the Occupied West Bank and within the Green Line; the other in Gaza. Over the course of the festival free public events will be held in Gaza City, Haifa, Jerusalem, Nablus and Ramallah.
The mission statement of Palfest is to bring “world class cultural events to communities that otherwise would have no access to them.”
The founding member of PalFest, Ahdaf Soueif said that despite “geographical fragmentation” and against “tremendous odds” the Palestinian people continue to “survive as a community.”  Soueif credited culture with being one of the main factors in Palestinian unity, “it is this unity of culture that Palfest speaks to this year by taking the festival to Haifa and Gaza City, as well as Ramallah and Jerusalem,” he said.
Najwan Darwish, literary advisor of the festival, said “writing can only be an act of resistance. And this is what gives PalFest its meaning and its value.”
Participants at the event include Othman Hussain and Tom Warner. As well as holding free public events in the evenings, the festival participants will conduct workshops with students. Historical and political tours will also be taken in Bethlehem, Hebron, Haifa, Jerusalem and Nablus and meetings with activists will be organised.
As a subset of the festival, a children’s festival, will be held in the gardens of the Palestine Writing Centre on May 31.