Dubai: The Emirates Airlines Literature of Festival (EAFL) opened on Tuesday, marking the start of a 12-day-long programme.
Touting an itinerary bursting with 150 writers, poets and illustrators from more than 30 countries, the first turn of the page at the festival focused on Emirati history and culture; its first night paying tribute to the life of a local literary icon — Mohammad Bin Hadher.
“Poetry is a cause, in your blood, tied up with the love of the soil, with memories and past experiences from yesterday, for the betterment of today and tomorrow,” Bin Hadher is quoted as saying by the EAFL website.
The Emirati author and diplomat died in 2011, at the age of 63.
Bin Hadher served as a diplomat in Beirut and Karachi; after which he became a member of the Federal National Council. He contributed to establishing the Rashid Prize for Higher Education scholarship and the Nadwa Cultural and Scientific Association. Bin Hadher was also a businessman and an active public figure.
“Bin Hadher was a great literary icon in the UAE,” Yara Mirdad, Arabic Programme Manager at the festival, said. “He participated in the 2010 edition of the festival, so it made sense to pay tribute to his life and his works. He had a tremendous impact on local culture, and constantly promoted literature and education.”
Bin Hadher’s notebooks and manuscripts were displayed during Tuesday’s event, which took place at the Dubai International Writer’s Centre in the Al Shindagha Historical Neighbourhood.
“We had a lot of support from Bin Hadher’s family, who gave us his notebooks to display during the event,” Mirdad said. “We wanted to display the man behind the poet.”
Although Bin Hadher’s poems frequently appeared in magazines, his works were never published in a book.
Ebrahim Al Hashemi, General Secretary of the Emirates Writer’s Association, knew him personally and compiled Bin Hadher’s poems in a biography about the poet.
Al Hashemi, along with Emirati poet Khalid Albudoor, paid tribute to Bin Hadher by reciting his poems during Tuesday’s event.
What’s to Come
The eighth edition of the festival, which is centred around the theme of ‘Time’, will host a number of luminaries from the literary world, among them novelist Anthony Horowitz; award-winning children’s writer Jacqueline Wilson; English poet and playwright Simon Armitage; and British Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. (For the full list of authors and events, visit http://emirateslitfest.com/.)
With 2016 announced as the Year of Reading by the country’s leaders, the festival is putting a special emphasis on the pursuit of words. The festival director, Isobel Abulhoul, who is also the trustee of the Emirates Literature Foundation and Festival Director, had earlier said that parents must read to their children to instil the habit in them.
“Surveys show that more than half of the children who are read to by their parents or see their parents read, prefer the habit more than watching television or surfing the net,” Abulhoul had said, “which goes to show that to make our children read we have to make parents pick up the habit too.”
The festival also gives a chance to its visitors to attend literary debates, listen to readings, participate in workshops and children’s events. Writing competitions and an inter-school quiz are among the educational highlights, and young people also have the chance to hear and meet some of their favourite writers.
With simultaneous translation between Arabic and English for select sessions, the festival is a meeting of minds where ideas are shared and friendships are formed — not least among the authors themselves.
