The annual Emirates Airline Festival of Literature rounded off nine days of literary excitement with a number of authors sharing anecdotes of their Festival journey. The ninth Festival celebrated the UAE’s 2017 Month of Reading, as instituted by Festival patron His Highness Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
Held in partnership with Emirates Airline and the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture), the Emirate’s dedicated Authority for heritage, arts, and culture, the Festival was honoured to receive Her Highness Sheikha Latifa Bint Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice Chairman, Dubai Culture & Arts Authority, Vice Chairman, Emirates Literature Foundation, His Excellency Sheikh Nahyan Mubarak Al Nahyan, UAE Cabinet Member and Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development and His Excellency Mohammad Al-Murr, Federal National Council Speaker. In addition, Her Excellency Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Cabinet Member and Minister of State for Tolerance led the panel discussion on A Time of Tolerance and Her Excellency Ohood Al Roumi, Minister of State for Happiness was part of the panel on Reflections on Happiness and Positivity, the latest book by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai. The English edition of which was announced at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, which will be released one week later.
Isobel Abulhoul, OBE, CEO and Trustee of the Emirates Literature Foundation and Director of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature said of the event, ‘In this, the National Month of Reading, it was a great honour for us to host the launch of the English edition of His Highness’ book at the Festival. Our motto this year was Happiness, Peace, Tolerance and Diversity, themes that resonate within His Highness’ book and which we want to adopt for the future.
‘I was very fortunate to have an early look at the new edition. There is a wealth of ideas and reflections in this book, but this one really stood out for me: ‘A person can fight back tears in a sad situation, but they cannot resist returning a genuine smile.’ These nuggets and more await the reader of this incredible book.’
More than 180 international and regional authors, poets and speakers attended the Festival, with over 70 Arab World authors, including 40 from the UAE, participating.
At the welcome ceremony, His Excellency Sheikh Nahyan Mubarak Al Nahyan said about the Festival’s authors, ‘Imagination and creativity inspire and guide journeys. Journeys require journeyers—the human beings who inevitably experience successes and failures, loves and hates, emotions and reason, knowledge and ignorance, joys and disappointments, births and deaths. Their human stories are the stories that you tell in the whole expanse of literary work—biographies, plays, analytic articles, novels, histories, poems, essays, short stories. You and your work create the human context of every journey.’
Abulhoul added, ‘This is what the Festival has been part of, changing the literary landscape of the UAE for the better, enabling Emirati writers and providing them a platform to showcase their novels and books. We should all be proud of the home-grown talents here in the country.
‘In our first year, the Festival’s Arabic line-up was star-studded but very literary. This year, the breadth of interest from our Emirati authors included talks about major research into literacy, environment, gardening and sports sponsorship. We have had video game designers as well as a table-top gamer; illustrators and animators, and, of course, many writers and poets, with substantial diversity in what they write, plus a number of panels on a diverse range of subjects featuring a mix of Emirati and international speakers.’
Boutros Boutros – Divisional Senior Vice President Corporate Communications, Marketing and Brand for Emirates said: ‘We are proud to support and lend our name to the Festival of Literature, and we will continue our commitment to bringing in renowned international and Arab authors to the UAE. This event has grown to become a global festival in the literary event calendar, and we believe that it is impeccably aligned with Emirates’ aim of bringing the world closer and connecting people with one another.’
Saeed Al Nabouda, Acting Director General at Dubai Culture, said: ‘We are delighted to witness the outstanding success of the ninth edition of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, which has cemented its reputation as the region’s most exciting celebration of the written and spoken word. Our commitment to supporting the Festival springs from our mission to further the UAE National Strategy of Reading 2016-2026, as the event marked a key highlight of the National Month of Reading in March 2017. The Festival is also part of Dubai Culture’s wider efforts to spread a love of reading by immersing residents, visitors, adults and children in the absorbing world of literature.’
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