www.palfest.

org

Programme

Adjacent Activites

Participants

Company Profiles

Acknowledgements

Programme

May 1 | Jerusalem

7pm

Jerusalem
Palestinian National Theatre
Beyond Fiction
Celebrating Taha Muhammad Ali
Susan Abulhawa
Najwan Darwish
Selina Hastings
James Wood
Presented by Nazmi al-Jubeh
Moderated by Ahdaf Soueif

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7:00

May 2 | Jerusalem & Nablus

10.30am

Al Quds University
Main Auditorium, AQU Main Campus

7.30pm

Nablus
Hammam al-Shifa
Pathfinding
Suad Amiry
Hisham Matar
Raja Shehadeh
Hala Shrouf
William Sutcliffe
Moderated by Sonia Nimr

: 2

10:30

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May 3 | Jenin & Beit Wazan

10.30am

Jenin
The Freedom Theatre

7.30pm

Beit Wazan
Beit Wazan, Qasr al-Qasem
Unchecked Beats
Falastine Dwikat
Najwan Darwish
Suheir Hammad
Remi Kanazi
Tashweesh
Presented and MCd by Suad Amiry

: 3

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May 4 | Nablus & Bethlehem

9am

Nablus
an-Najah University, Library Conference Hall

1pm

Bethlehem
Bethlehem University, Furno Hall

8pm

Bethlehem
Dheisha Camp, Ibda Centre
Open Stage
Remi Kanazi
Hisham Matar
Ibda Group
Presented and MCd by Nathalie Handal

: 4

9:00

1:00

8:00

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May 5 | Hebron & Ramallah

10am

Hebron
Hebron University, Auditorium 1
Relationships
Amani al-Juneidi
Raja Shehadeh
William Sutcliffe

8pm

Ramallah
Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre
The Broken Word
Geoff Dyer
Adam Foulds
Nancy Kricorian
Mahmoud Shukair
James Wood
Moderated by May Jayyusi

: 5

:00

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8:00

May 6 | Birzeit & Jerusalem

10am

Birzeit
Bizeit University, Kamal Nasser Hall

8pm

Jerusalem
African Community Society
Words That Move Us
All PalFest 2010 artists, with Jerusalem
Ensemble for Arabic Music

: 6

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10:00

8:00

Adjacent Activites

Theatre
I am Yusuf and this is my Brother
May 4

6.30pm Jenin

The Freedom Theatre

I am Yusuf and this is my Brother, by Amir Nizar Zuabi,

is the latest Shiber Hur production. About dislocation and
dispossession, it tells the story of Yusuf and his younger
brother Ali. Yusuf is eccentric and has a rather child-like take
on life. Ali is in love with Nada, but her father refuses to allow
them to get married, because he fears Yusufs oddity. While
at the heart of this play is the love between two individuals,
the bigger picture tells the story of the people of Palestine
and the devastating effects the loss of their land in 1948,
and how this loss still reverberates today.

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Staged Reading
Sarhat Falastiniyyah
May 2

5pm

Hebron

Yes Theatre Company in collaboration with Shiber Hur

May 4

6.30pm Jerusalem

al-Mamal Foundation for Contemporary Art:

The New Hakawati Theatre Company

May 4

7pm

Ramallah

Ashtar Theatre: Ashtar Theatre Company

May 6

7pm

Bethlehem

Dar Annadwa: al-Hara Theatre Company

Four different theatre groups - the New Hakawati (Jerusalem),

Yes (al-Khalil), al-Harah (Beit Jala) and Ashtar (Ramallah) will
each present a staged reading entitled Sarhat Falastiniyyah,
based on the first chapter of Palestinian Walks, by PalFest
author Raja Shehadeh. Though short of being full theatre,
these staged readings can open up a text to audiences in
a dramatic manner that allows for a more layered interaction
than a straightforward reading.

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Exhibition
Ode to Beirut
Curated by Misbah Deeb | Works by Rachid Koraishi
Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, Ramallah
Show Openings
May 3

5pm

Bethlehem Dar Annadwa

May 3

6.30pm Ramallah

Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre

May 4

6pm

al-Mamal Foundation for

Contemporary Art

Jerusalem

Ode to Beirut was inspired by Mahmoud Darwishs poem of

the same name, written during the Israeli invasion and siege
of Beirut and published in 1984 in the collection Praising the
High Shadow. Korachi and Darwish donated the paintings,
to the permanent art collection of the Khalil Sakakini Cultural
Centre in Ramallah.
Three different arts organizations, the Sakakini Cultural Centre
in Ramallah, al-Mamal Foundation in Jerusalem and Dar
Annadwa in Bethlehem are exhibiting Ode to Beirut in
co-operation as part of PalFest 2010.

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Screening
Dam/Age: A Film with Arundhati Roy

) : 2002(

(2002, Dir. Aradhana Seth)

Screenings
May 3

6pm

Bethlehem Dar Annadwa

May 3

6.30pm Jerusalem

The Educational Bookshop

May 3

7.30pm Ramallah

Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre

Dam/Age traces writer Arundhati Roys campaign against the

Narmada dam project in India, which is expected to displace
up to a million people. As the film traces the events that
eventually led to her imprisonment following her campaign,
Roy meditates on her own personal negotiation with fame,
the responsibility it places on her as a writer, a political thinker
and a citizen.

7:

Poetry Evening

Poetry of Palestine
May 7

7.30pm Birzeit

The Roof, CCE Building

Poetry of Palestine is a monthly literary event in which poets,

both established and emerging, are offered a platform for
performance and a space to share their work, inspiring one
another as well as their audience. Past performers include
Remi Kanazi, Zakaria Mohammed and Najwan Darwish.
After the monthly programme that features interludes by
audio visual group Tashweesh, the floor is opened for an open
micforging a new community of young poets and bringing
poetry center-stage.
Mays edition will feature young spoken word poets who have
been through two weeks of workshops with Remi Kanazi organized by the Palestine Writing Workshop and PalFest.

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Participants

Susan Abulhawa
Born to refugees of the 1967 war when Israel captured what
remained of Palestine, including Jerusalem, she currently
lives in Pennsylvania with her daughter. She is the founder
and President of Playgrounds for Palestine, a childrens
organization dedicated to upholding The Right to Play for
Palestinian children. Her essays and political commentaries
have appeared in print and international news media and
she is a contributing author to two anthologies, Shattered
Illusions (Amal Press, 2002) and Searching Jenin (Cune Press,
2003). Mornings in Jenin (Bloomsbury, 2009) is her first novel.

Taha Muhammad Ali

was forced with his family into a year-long exile when their
village, Saffuriyya, was destroyed by the Israeli army
in 1948. He was seventeen. They eventually managed to come
back and settle just five kilometres away from Saffuriyya,
in Nazareth, where he has lived ever since. For the next fifty
years, Ali would work during the day in his shop in Nazareth.
At night, however, he would study poetry; everything from
classical Arabic to contemporary American free verse. In the
1950s Ali published his first short stories, but his poems did
not begin to appear in Arabic periodicals until the 1970s.
His books of poetry include Fourth Qasida (1983), Fooling
the Killers (1989), and Fire in the Convent Graveyard (1992).

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Suad Amiry
Palestinian writer and architect, and author of the well-known
Sharon and My Mother-in-Law which has been translated
into 11 languages and was awarded the prestigious 2004
Viareggio Prize. She is the director of the Riwaq Centre for
Architectural Conservation (sponsored by Sida, the Swedish
Agency for International Development Cooperation, and the
Ford Foundation) and in 2006 was appointed vice-chair of
the Board of Trustees of Birzeit University. Her latest book is
Murad, Murad , published by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation
Publishing in April 2010. Amiry lives in Ramallah with her
husband, the academic and political activist Salim Tamari.

Victoria Brittain
has worked as a journalist in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
For more than two decades she worked for The Guardian,
where she became Associate Foreign Editor. She also writes
for various French media outlets and has been a consultant
for the UN on issues of women and war, and to the Gaza
Community Mental Health Programme. Most recently she
has been a Research Associate at the London School of
Economics. She is a patron of the Palestine Solidarity
Campaign, a trustee of Widows Rights International and
of Gift for Life, Rwanda. Among her publications is Enemy
Combatant, written with Muazzem Beg. Her most recent
work, Waiting, in which she describes the lives of the wives
of political detainees using their own words set to music
has been a major success on the London stage. She is a
Founding Trustee of PalFest.

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Susannah Clapp
the author of With Chatwin (Cape 1997, Vintage 1998), a portrait of Bruce Chatwin. She helped to found the London Review
of Books, has worked as a publishers reader and editor, as the
radio critic of the Sunday Times and as the theatre critic ofthe
New Statesman. She has reviewed novels and non-fiction
for the Times Literary Supplement, the New Yorker, the Sunday
Times, the Observer, the London Review of Books, the New
Statesman and the Independent on Sunday. She is a regular
contributor to Radio 3s Nightwaves, and has been the theatre
critic of the Observer since 1997. She is currently working on
a book about postcards.

Najwan Darwish
His first poetry collection, He was Knocking at the Last Door,
was published in 2000, and his poems have since been
translated into Spanish, French and English. He is the editor
of the magazine Min wa Ila, (From and To), which publishes
works of the current generation of Arab writers and artists.
He is active in diverse media and art projects in Palestine,
the Arab world and Europe.

Falastine Dwikat
Palestinian poet from Nablus, Falastine has several articles
published online and is about to publish her first volume of
verse.She is a graduate of an-Najah National University and
is currently working for her MA in Applied Linguistics and
Translation. She is the programme manager of the Research
Journalism Initiative (RJI) at an-Najah. Her work with Poetry
of Witness has created a meaningful bridge with students in
US classrooms.

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Geoff Dyer
has many books, including But Beautiful, Yoga For People
Who Cant Be Bothered To Do It , The Ongoing Moment and,
most recently, a novel, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi.
His many awards include the Somersert Maugham Prize,
the E. M. Forster Award and a Lannan Literary Fellowship.
A new collection of essays, Working the Room, will be
published by Canongate in November.

Jillian Edelstein
London based, award winning photographer, she was born
and grew up in Cape Town, South Africa and her portraits
have appeared in several major publications including
The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair,
Vogue and Interview. Her photographs have been exhibited
internationally at venues including the National Portrait
Gallery, The Photographers Gallery, The Royal Academy New
Art Space, the Tom Blau Gallery in London, the Recontres
Internationales de la Photographie in Arles, France and the
Bensusan Museum, Johannesburg.

Rose Fenton
an independent arts producer and advisor, she is co-Founder
of the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) and was
its co-Director for 25 years. Since leaving LIFT in 2005 Rose
has continued to develop projects across Europe, including
FIT - Festivals in Transition - an initiative by eight Festivals to
develop the role of international theatre festivals within the
cultural landscape of an evolving Europe. She is on the boards
of several arts organisations. Her book, The Turning World,
written with Lucy Neal, was published in 2005. In 2005 Rose
was awarded an OBE for Services to Drama.

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Adam Foulds
has produced three books in the last five years. The novel,
The Truth about These Strange Times (2007) won the Betty Trask
award and made him the Sunday Times Young Writer of the
Year. Broken Words (2008), a narrative poem, was short-listed
for the John Llewellyn Rhys Award and won the Costa Prize
in poetry. In 2009, his novel, The Quickening Maze, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Suheir Hammad
the author of Breaking Poems, she is the recipient of a 2009
American Book Award, and the Arab American Book award
for Poetry 2009. Her other books are ZaatarDiva (2006), Born
Palestinian, Born Black (1996) and Drops of this Story (1996).
Her work has been widely anthologised and adapted for
the theatre. Her produced plays include Blood Trinity and
Breaking letter(s), and she wrote the libretto for the multimedia performance Re-Orientalism. An original writer and
performer in The Tony award-winning Russell Simmons
Presents Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, Hammad appears
in the 2008 Cannes Film Festival Official Selection,
Salt of this Sea.

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Nathalie Handal
an award-winning poet, playwright and writer, she has lived
in Europe, the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America
and the Arab world. Her work has appeared in numerous
anthologies and magazines, and she has been featured on PBS
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, NPR, as well as The New York
Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Reuters, Mail & Guardian,
The Jordan Times and Il Piccolo. Her most recent books include:
Love and Strange Horses (2010), and the landmark anthology,
Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from
the Middle East, Asia and Beyond (2008). Handal has been
involved either as a writer, director or producer in over twelve
theatrical and/or film productions worldwide. She was
an honoured finalist for the 2009 International Rescue
Committee Freedom Award.

Selina Hastings
Writer and journalist and the author of the literary
biographies of Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh and
Rosamond Lehman. Her latest book, The Secret Lives
of Somerset Maugham (John Murray, 2009) has been described
by A N Wilson as like a great novel, a work of art. A lifelong
Londoner, Hastings first job was at Hatchards bookshop,
after which she worked for fourteen years on the Daily
Telegraph and for eight years was literary editor of Harpers &
Queen. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she reviews
regularly and has been a judge of the Booker, Whitbread,
British Academy, Ondaatje and Duff Cooper Prizes, and of the
UK Biographers Award.

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Rachel Holmes
Her most recent book, The Hottentot Venus: The Life and Times
of Saartjie Baartman, was published by Bloomsbury in 2007.
She is currently writing A Life of Eleanor Marx. Holmes is Head
of Literature and the Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre,
London, and runs the annual London Literature Festival. She
is a founder and patron of FOTAC UK, which supports the
Treatment Action Campaign in the fight for HIV and AIDS in
South Africa, and Chair of Africa Beyond, celebrating African
artists in the UK. Holmes participated in PalFest 2009, then
led the first Writing Workshop organised in co-operation with
Birzeit University.
She was named as one of 50 women to watch by the Arts
Councils Cultural Leadership Programme.

May Jayyusi
has translated into English a number of Arabic novels and
collections of poetry, including works by Ibrahim al-Koni,
Ghassan Kanafani, Muhammad al-Maghout and Ibrahim
Nasrallah. She has been executive director of Muwatin,
the Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy since
1995. and is a member of an international research team
working to produce A Micro-History of Palestinian Life
in the Twentieth Century based on personal accounts.
Jayyusi obtained a BA honors in Philosophy from University
College, London and an MSc. in Film and Communications from Boston University. She writes on philosophy and
politics, was a Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Research fellow
(1994-1998), and has been a recipient of an International
Collaborative Research Grant Fellowship from the Social
Science Research Council, New York.

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Jerusalem Ensemble for Arabic Music

Founded by the Edward Said National Conservatory for Music
(ENCM) during Jerusalems year as Capital of Arab Culture
(2009); an original ensemble formed to perform both locally
and internationally. The groups first project saw them collaborate with the composer Simon Shaheen and singers Dalal Abu
Amneh and Hani Asaad as part of 2009s Layali al-Tarab fi Quds
al-Arab Festival. They performed - and met with extraordinary
success - in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Nablus.

Amani Juneidi
A short story writer and novelist and editor of the Culture
section in the Democracy Journal published in Ramallah.
She holds a B.A. in Arabic Language and Literature from the
University of Jordan and a diploma in education. She has
been a teacher of Arabic in the Ministry of Education
in Palestine, a director of a school and is currently working
in the Department of Literature at the Ministry of Culture.
Her works include A Woman with a Taste of Strawberry
(Ugarit, 2005) and An Intelligent Man and Dim Women
(Dar Shurouq, 2007).

Remi Kanazi
Palestinian-American poet and writer, he is the co-founder
of PoeticInjustice.net and the editor of Poets For Palestine,
an anthology of poetry, spoken word, hip hop, and art. His
political commentary has been featured in print and online
media throughout the world. He has performed poetry
across North America and has appeared in the New York
Arab American Comedy Festival. He is a recurring writer in
residence for the Palestine Writing Workshop as well as a
member of its advisory committee. He is currently working
on his first collection of poetry, due out in the fall.

2009

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Nancy Kricorian
An American writer and poet, she has taught at Yale and
Barnard Colleges, among others. Her poetry has been published in Parnassus, Mississppi Review, Graham House Review,
Ararat, and other journals. She is the author of the novels
Zabelle (1998) and Dreams of Bread and Fire (2003). She is
currently dividing her time between writing her third novel
and working as the New York City coordinator for CODEPINK
WOMEN FOR PEACE, a women-initiated grassroots peace &
social movement known for its use of direct action and street
theatre.

Rachid Korachi
A visual artist whose works have been exhibited since 1970
in various museums and galleries around the world. Some
are part of the collections of prominent international art
institutions such as The Museum of Contemporary Art, Paris,
the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cairo, the Gulbenkian
Foundation, Lisbon, the Miami Art Museum and the Herbert
Johnson Museum of Art, New York. Korachi graduated from
the Higher Institute of Fine Arts, Algeria, and three other art
institutes in France.

Henning Mankell
A crime novelist and playwright, he is the creator of the Kurt
Wallander detective novels which have been published
in 33 countries and consistently top the bestseller lists
in Europe. A political dimension is always present in his
writing. He has received major literary prizes and generated
numerous international film and television adaptations.
He was born in Stockholm and now lives between Sweden
and Maputo, Mozambique, where he works as the director
of Teatro Avenida.

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Hisham Matar
His first book, In the Country of Men, (Penguin 2006), was
shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Guardian First Book
Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Among the
awards it has won are the Commonwealth Prize for Europe
and South Asia, the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize
and Italys prestigious Premio Internazionale Flaiano.
In the Country of Men has been translated to twenty-seven
languages. Matar has just finished his second novel.

Ritu Menon
Co-founder of Kali for Women, Indias oldest feminist press,
and founder-director of Women Unlimited, an associate of
Kali for Women, which between them have published many
of the most important texts in womens studies in India. She
has written several books, among them the path-breaking
Borders & Boundaries: Women in Indias Partition; and edited
several anthologies of writing by Indian women. She is also
a Founder Member of Womens WORLD (International) and
Womens WORLD (India), free-speech networks of writers
and publishers that work on gender-based censorship across
the world. Since 2000, the India network has worked with
over 300 women writers from five South Asian countries.

Pankaj Mishra
His novel The Romantics (2000) was published in eleven
European languages and won the Los Angeles Times Art
Seidenbaum award for first fiction. His most recent books
are An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World and
Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan,
Afghanistan and Beyond. He also contributes literary and
political essays for the New York Times, New York Review
of Books, The Guardian, Outlook Magazine and the New Yorker
among other American, British, and Indian publications.

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Sonia Nimr
writes books for children and young adults in both
Arabic and English. Her English books include A Little Piece of
Ground ( with Elizabeth Laird, 2004), and Ghaddar the Ghoul
(2007). In 2004 she was on the Honours List of the IBBY (the
International Board on Books for Young People) for a story
in Arabic called Begins and Ends With Lies (2003). She holds
a PhD in Oral History from Exeter University and teaches at
Bir Zeit University, Department of Cultural Studies. She lives in
Ramallah with her young son and her husband.

Arundhati Roy
The renowned author of the The God of Small Things, for
which she was awarded the Booker Prize in 1997, and of
various collections of essays such as The Algebra of Infinite
Justice and An Ordinary Persons Guide to Empire. Her latest
book is Listening to Grasshoppers, a thought-provoking
series of essays examining the dark side of democracy in
contemporary India. She lives in New Delhi, India.

Eugene Schoulgin
Known for the best-selling trilogy of novels Memories of
Mirella (nominated for the Nordic Literary Award), Federico
- Federico! and Salto Mortale, Schoulgin is International
Secretary and Chair of the Board of International PEN.
Of Norweigan-Russian origin, he began his career as a writer
in 1970 with the novel The Rabbit Cage. Since 1994 he has
divided his time between writing and working for the
Writers in Prison Committee of PEN which he chaired from
2000 to 2004. He has helped set up PEN Centres in some
of the more troubled regions of the world, including
Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Hala Shrouf
Palestinian poet and winner of the A.M. Qattan Foundations
Young Writer Award (2004). Her collection, I Will Follow the
Cloud, came out in 2005. Her work has been translated into
several languages including English, French, Spanish and
Swedish and appears regularly in Palestinian newspapers.
Shrouf holds a BA in English Literature and Translation from
Birzeit University, has worked as a teacher at the Ministry
of Education and has taught the deaf at the Palestinian Red
Crescent Society. She is now working at the Tamer Institute for
Community Education.

Raja Shehadeh
Palestinian lawyer and writer who lives in Ramallah.
He is a founder of the pioneering human rights organisation,
Al-Haq, an affiliate of the International Commission of
Jurists, and the author of several books about international
law, human rights and the Middle East. Shehadeh is the
author of the highly praised Strangers in the House (2002)
and When the Birds Stopped Singing: Life in Ramallah Under
Siege (2003), described by The Economist as distinctive and
truly impressive. Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing
Landscape (2007), published by Profile Books, won the
Orwell Prize in 2008.

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Mahmoud Shukair
Author of 27 books for children and adults, six television series
and three plays. He started writing in 1962 and published
many short stories in the Jerusalemite magazine: al-Ufuk
al-Jadid (The New Horizon). He has also been the Chief Editor
of various literary magazines and cultural supplements in
Palestine and Jordan and is currently writing a book about his
city, Jerusalem, where he lives.

Ahdaf Soueif
Author of the bestselling The Map of Love (shortlisted for
the Booker Prize in 1999 and translated into more than
20 languages), as well as the well-loved In the Eye of the Sun
and the collection of short stories, I Think of You. Soueif is
also a political and cultural commentator. A collection of her
essays, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground, was
published in 2004. Her translation (from Arabic into English)
of Mourid Barghoutis I Saw Ramallah also came out in 2004.
In 2007 Ms Soueif founded Engaged Events, a UK based
charity. Its first project is the Palestine Festival of Literature,
PalFest. She is the first recipient of the Mahmoud Darwish
Award (2010).

William Sutcliffe
Author of five novels, New Boy, Are You Experienced?, The
Love Hexagon, Bad Influence and Whatever Makes You Happy,
which have been translated into twenty languages. He also
works as a journalist and screenwriter. He lives in London
with his wife and two children.

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Tashweesh
an audio-visual performance group that brings together
the different practices and interests of artists Ruanne
Abou-Rahme, boikutt, and Basel Abbas (Aswat), using sound,
music, image and text. The result is an exploration of and
collision between sound and video field recordings, archive
material, vocals, breaks and soundscapes. Since 2003 the
artists have collaborated and performed together, individually
and as Ramallah Underground in various venues and festivals
around the world. PalFest is proud to present their first full
performance as Tashweesh.

WildWorks
An international company of artists, musicians & theatre
makers who create unique landscape theatre in challenging
places and with extraordinary communities. Their productions
have been sited in old quarries, derelict mines, shipyards,
abandoned department stores, a Napoleonic citadel,
a Royal Palace, the Green Line in Nicosia They have worked
with gospel choirs, drama groups, North African migrants,
cake-makers, ex-miners, a young hip-hop group, abseilers and
a Hells Angels chapter. They bring the seeds of a story to a site
and weave in the strands that tie people and place together.

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James Wood
Staff writer for the New Yorker and Professor of the Practice
of Literary Criticism at Harvard University. In 2008, Wood was
named one of the top 30 critics in the world by Intelligent Life,
the lifestyle publication from The Economist. His books include
The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel and How
Fiction Works.

Amir Nizar Zuabi

Theatre director, playwright and a founding member of Shiber
Hur Theatre in Haifa. He has directed a number of plays,
including I am Yusuf and this is my Brother (Shiber Hur Theater
Company, Haifa & The Young Vic Theater, London), Stories
Under Occupation (Kasaba Theatre, Ramallah), When the World
was Green (The Young Vic Theater, London), The Mural by
Mahmoud Darwish (The National Palestinian Theatre,
Jerusalem), The Burning of the Temple and The Story of the
Fall (Midan Theater, Haifa), War is More (Shiber Hur Theater
Company, Haifa), and Samson and Delilah (Flanders Opera,
Antwerp), among others.

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Company Profiles

Ashtar Theatre
was established in 1991 in Jerusalem to launch the first
theatre-training program for school students. In 1995 it
inaugurated its second base - in Ramallah. A non-profit
organisation, Ashtar aims to make theatre a core part
of Palestinian society. and is actively engaged in researching
and experimenting with various artistic elements, tools and
techniques. It aims to penetrate all walls - including that
of the audiences unconscious.

al-Harah Theatre
Established in 2005 in Beit Jala, Bethlehem, al-Harah is a
non-profit organisation set up by seven young Palestinians:
a theatre director, a technician, a producer and four actors.
All seven have worked in theatre for the past 15 years have
participated in Arab and International Theatre Festivals and
have received several prizes.

Yes Theatre
is an independent initiative founded in al-Khalil/Hebron
in early 2007 by a group of artists including Raed Shyoukhi,
Muhammad Titi and Ihab Zahda. It is a non-profit
organization aiming to offer theatrical activities, projects
and programs to the local community across Hebron
Governorate.

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The New Hakawati Theatre

began its adventure in 1977, with a group of friends
founding al-Hakawati Theatre Company. For six years they
lived the exalting and precarious lives of a travelling theatre
troupe, performed in schools, villages and refugee camps
in Palestine and in festivals and theatre halls in Europe.
Then, tired of being nomads, they transformed the fireblackened walls of the oldest cinema in East Jerusalem,
Cinema al-Nuzha, into a 400-seat theatre - today the
Palestinian National Theatre. Al-Hakawati blend the Arab
literary heritage into contemporary theatrical practice developing a visual alchemy that gives their theatre a poetic
strength. A theatre of confrontation, the New Hakawati have
encouraged reflection and questioning throughout their
long career.

Shiber Hur Theatre

Founded in 2009, by Amir Nizar Zuabi, Amer Hlehel,
Ali Soliman, Ashraf Hanna and Ruba Billal, and is based
in Haifa. Shiber Hur is an emergent and constantly evolving
ensemble of performers and collaborators, and is dedicated
to producing contemporary and classical theatre for
audiences across Palestine and abroad. Its mission is to break
new ground, broaden access to theatre, generate new loyal
audiences and foster the love for quality theatre in Palestine.

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Acknowledgements

Partners

Patrons
Chinua Achebe

Principal Partners:

John Berger
Seamus Heaney
Philip Pullman
E U R O M E D

Emma Thompson
& the late:
Mahmoud Darwish
Harold Pinter

In co-operation with:

Supporters
Mustafa Beidas
Dale Egee
Alison Elliott
Aref Hakki
Zina Jardaneh
Riad Kamal
Henning Mankell
Rana Sadik & Samer Younis
Ahdaf Soueif
Sheila Whitaker

Acknowledgements

Ibrahim Abu Hashash



Mahmoud Abu Hashash


Alicia Adams

Hisham al-Sayeh

Jamil al-Sayeh

Alaa Abu Dheer

Kamal al-Sayeh

Omar Barghouti

Alice Caronna

Morgan Cooper

Areej Daibas

Wafa Darwish

Lubna Fahoum

Lena Fawzy

Rose Fenton


Esther Freud

Sarah al-Guindy

Tariq Hamdan


Paola Handal

Nahla Hanno

Samira Hassassian

Nada Hegazi

Jihan al-Helou

Emma Henderson


Rachel Holmes

Louise Hosking

Rose Issa

Carmen Callil

Islah Jad
Penny Johnson
Suzanne Joinson
Terry Jones
Mohammed Khalil
Sandra Lauckner
-Rothschild
Fiona McMorrough
Diana Mardi
Khaled Elayyan

Joanna Marschner
Bakria Mawasi
Madeleine McGivern
Carol Michael
Sani Meo
Zafer Mohammad
Philip Mould
Rima Najjar
Lara George Nassar
Tania & Hanna Nasir

Andrew OHagan

Alexandra Pringle

Omar and Ghalia Qattan

Renad Qubbaj

Prospero World

Pru Rowlandson

Reverend Mitri Raheb

Fawzia Salama

Sita Schutt

Anton Shammas

Raja Shehadeh

Awatef Sheikh

Salah Shrouf

Adrian Turpin

Lucia Verol

Leonora Wood


All the volunteers

Bill Parry

* Filistin Ashabab Magazine and Radio.

* This Week in Palestine magazine and
Turbo Design.
* And a special thanks to all the staff
of all our partner organisations.

Credits

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Board of Trustees, Engaged Events

Victoria Brittain, Alison Elliot, John Horner
(Treasurer), Brigid Keenan, Ahdaf Soueif
(Founding Chair), Sheila Whitaker

Festival Organiser
Christina Baum
Creative Producer
Omar Robert Hamilton
Curator Palestine
Adania Shibli
Festival Consultant
Eleanor O'Keeffe
Public Relations and Media
FMCM Associates
Melody Odusanya
Jessica Axe
Fiona McMorrough
Design
Muiz Anwar
PalFest Logo
Jeff Fisher
Photographers
Jamie Archer
Raouf Haj Yehia
Web Consultant
Manal Bahayeldin
Festival Assistants
Lena Fawzy
Louise Hosking
Reem Shilleh
The Palestine Festival of Literature is an
Engaged Events initiative

www.palfest.org