Palestine Festival of Literature

Mahmoud Darwish sent a message to the inaugural festival in which he wrote: “Thank you dear friends for your noble solidarity, thank you for your courageous gesture to break the moral siege inflicted upon us and thank you because you are resisting the invitation to dance on our graves.

After ten editions, the organizers announced took a break in 2018 to assess the role of the festival in a rapidly changing world.

[4] In 2019, the festival was re-launched with "a sharpened focus on how to foster new writing that clarifies and frames the connections between the recreation of Israel and the accelerating systems of control and dispossession around the world.

The full cast includes Khalid Abdalla, Tunde Adebimpe, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Adam Bakri, Kathleen Chalfant, Steve Coogan, Liam Cunningham, Charles Dance, Natalie Diaz, Stephen Dillane, Inua Ellams, Paapa Essiedu, Lena Headey, Aida El-Kashef, Simon McBurney, Maaza Mengiste, Tobias Menzies, Sepideh Moafi, Indya Moore, Peter Mullan, Cynthia Nixon, Maxine Peake, Kendrick Sampson, Dario Ladani Sanchez, Susan Sarandon, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Alia Shawkat, Wallace Shawn, Morgan Spector, Carice van Houten, Harriet Walter, and Zukiswa Wanner.

[6][7][8] Sir Philip Pullman said of the festival: "Every literary act, whether it is a great epic poem or an honest piece of journalism or a simple nonsense tale for children is a blow against the forces of stupidity and ignorance and darkness … The Palestine Festival of Literature exists to do just that – and I salute it for its work.