Support the First Ever Palestinian Literature Festival in the U.S.

Palestine Writes will be the first North American literature festival dedicated to the celebration and support of Palestinian literature. We're asking everyone who cares about Palestinian cultural agency to contribute to this watershed event.

From March 27-29th, 2020, in NYC—the weekend before Land Day—we will bring together writers, artists, publishers, booksellers, and scholars to read, present, and hold conversations about literature and the intersections between culture, struggle, society and power. Palestinian luminaries will be joined by their Black and Indigenous American counterparts in various panels and workshops to underscore the universality of these intersections. The common threads uniting all participants are the love of books and a consistent commitment to social justice and liberation struggles, especially in Palestine.

Devoted to the belief that art challenges repression and creates bonds between Palestine and the rest of the world, Palestine Writes will highlight the richness of Palestinian art for an audience that may not have had the opportunity to experience this work due to lack of linguistic access (limited translations) restrictions on movement of Palestinians, and the repression of Palestinian speech. It will be a groundbreaking celebration of the power of Palestinian writers and artists artistic visionaries and their supporters, bringing us together in the spirit of Mahmoud Darwish’s sentiment that we “have the right to smell autumn’s fragrances and ask the night for a dream.”