Now enjoy Dubai's Emirates Airline Festival of Literature 2022 on YouTube
Move aimed at making literary landscape more inclusive and accessible to all
Dubai: Sessions, conversations and poetry performances from the latest Emirates Airline Festival of Literature are now available to the public on YouTube for free, Emirates Literature Foundation (ELF) announced on Tuesday.
Panel sessions include ‘Global Leadership: Work, Family, and our Future’ with UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation and Director General Expo 2020 Dubai Reem Al Hashimy, and former CEO of PepsiCo Indra Nooyi.
The sessions are available in their entirety on the Emirates Literature Foundation’s YouTube channel where the foundation is also sharing author interviews from the recent festival, which was held in February.
There is also a dialogue about the best scientific discovery of all times with YouTube content creator Ahmed El Ghandour, known as Da7ee7; as well as Salem Al Marri, head of the UAE Astronaut Programme; and professor/ author Serhii Plokhy.
Sunday Times bestselling author Dr Rupy Aujla and Zahra Abdalla, cookbook author, presenter, entrepreneur, and social media influencer, also discuss modern ways of Cooking the Classics. Also available is the session on East meets West, where Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, prolific author and direct descendant of Charles Dickens; as well as Daniel L Newman, author and Chair of Arabic Studies at the University of Durham, and Karim Hauser, Head of International Relations at Spain’s Casa Árabe, reflect on the long history of globalisation in context of art, literature, and food.
More inclusive
Festival director Ahlam Bolooki said: “We strive to make the literary landscape more inclusive and accessible to all by making some of the diverse and interesting conversations from the Festival available online. It is our mission to bring the joy of literature and literary conversations to everyone, and allow global audiences to enjoy the LitFest experience.”
The foundation also shares in-depth conversations with writer and bloggers, Jenny Lawson, and with Emirati movers and shakers, including Omar Saif Ghobash, Assistant Minister for Culture and Public Diplomacy at the UAE’s Foreign Ministry, and Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor, founder, and chairman of Al Habtoor Group of Companies.
Anime and poetry
Art enthusiasts can immerse themselves in discussions with Ken Arto, animator of popular series JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Demonslayer and Jujutsu Kaisen, and Fadel AlMheiri, director of Catsaway, Abu Dhabi’s first animated feature film, on Anime Fan Club.
Poetry lovers can enjoy the world premiere of multi-lingual, multi-genre collaboration of Emirati spoken word poet, Dr Afra Atiq, with Colombian American award-winning poet, Carlos Andrés Gómez, and singer, songwriter and music producer, Brent Shuttleworth. Or relive the magic of Desert Stanzas, a signature Emirates LitFest event of poetry under the stars with Dr Afra Atiq, Ahmed Al Ali, Brent Shuttleworth, Carlos Andrés Gómez, Danabelle Gutierrez, Elizabeth Acevedo, Nikita Gill, Noor Naga, Sascha A Akhtar and Zainab Arrefai.