Keynote address from the 2022 Pen/Faulkner Award Winning author, Rabieh Alameddine.

This panel of leading regional and diaspora authors will discuss the inspiration for their most recent novels and the social, cultural and political context informing their work.  The panel will also explore the challenges that Arab writers in the region and its diaspora face as they reflect on societies dealing with globalization, trauma, gender, sexuality and identity. 

This panel features three Arab poets who will read from their poems in English. These poets will then discuss the circumstances of their poems' creation, poetry's place in Arab literature, and the challenges of being an Arab poet in the 21st century.

This panel brings together voices from the Arab world’s publishing and translation sectors, as well as leading figures behind literary prizes and book fairs, to discuss how to grow the Arab World’s literary infrastructure and audiences. 

The panel will look at platforms that have been instrumental in promoting and supporting contemporary writing from and about the Middle East and North Africa and the role they have in opening new and different conversations about the Middle East from the lens of literature.

An in-person (by invitation only) and live streamed event held at the Middle East Institute, featuring poetry reading by Zeina Azzam.