The liberated space of Palestine Writes
The Freedom Dabka Group performing at the opening of the Palestine Writes literature festival in Philadelphia, 22 September 2023
Nicki Kattoura reports in Mondoweiss:
During the second Palestine Writes Festival this past weekend in Philadelphia, two floors of Irvine Hall, a rotunda-shaped building on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus, were crowded with vendors selling keffiyehs, embroidered dresses, and bags, notebooks, shirts, jewelry, and olive oil among other things. Of course, a vast selection of books, in both Arabic and English, were piled high on tables and available for perusal and purchase. The selection was diverse in genre, from memoirs, poetry, and children’s stories to essays, novels, and translations. A singular hallway was lined with rooms that were packed with audiences rapt in silence as they witnessed, in both Arabic and English, discussions, interviews, panels, lectures, and readings.
While the subject matter was vast and the speakers were from all around the world, a singular undercurrent existed that bound all of Irvine Hall together: a deep love for Palestine and an unshaken commitment to her freedom.
Despite the event being met with the all-too-familiar racist, Zionist backlash in the form of false accusations of antisemitism, Palestine Writes was a beautifully moving success. Setting out to celebrate anticolonial, cultural resistance, and the long, rich, multi-faceted history of Palestine, the festival delivered a forum to confront, in the words of Edward Said, the “culture of power with the power of culture.”
In her opening remarks Executive Director, Susan Abulhawa, described this weekend as a way “to help see, hear, enjoy, and appreciate the indigenous heritage of one of the most fabled and tortured places on earth.” Indeed, with over 1,400 attendees coming from Palestine and the diaspora and one hundred speakers and cultural producers working in every medium, the three-day festival elevated the immense cultural contributions coming from the small strip of land nestled between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.