Past Events

At the Frome Festival
An Evening of Arab literature and music
with


Khyam Allami, Hassan Abdulrazzak, Margaret Obank, Ghalia Kabbani and Peter Clark

7:30-10:00pm, Thursday 15 July
Trinity Hall, Trinity Street, Frome, Somerset, BA11 3DF

Location: See google map

Tickets: £8 fom the Box Office 

Box office hours: Mon-Fri 9.30am - 2.30pm * Sat 9.30am - 5.00pm
Tel: 01373 455420   Email: cheeseandgraintickets@hotmail.com

Last year’s innovative ‘Arab Evening’ of readings, film, and delectable dishes all with an eastern flavour proved so popular there was a repeat helping at Trinity Hall this year on Thursday 15th July.

Featured this year were oud player Khyam Allami and two authors Ghalia Kabbani and Hassan Abdulrazzak. The latter's monologue Love in the Time of Barriers featured in the Summer issue, Banipal 38. Very unfortunately, Ghalia Kabbani's short story "A Cup of Tea with Mrs Robinson", translated from the Arabic by Ali Azeriah, could not be included in Banipal 38 owing to limitations of space. The evening was chaired by Margaret Obank, publisher of Banipal magazine.

Peter Clark, who lives in Frome and is a contributing editor of Banipal magazine, introduced the evening, and showed a film about the short-listed authors of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. He and Margaret Obank are both founding trustees of the prize.

Ghalia Kabbani was born in Syria and lived in Kuwait until the invasion in 1990. She works as a journalist in London and has published three collections of short stories and a novel, A Woman’s Morning.

Hassan Abdulrazzak is an Iraqi playwright, best known for his highly successful play Baghdad Wedding, also renowned as an essayist and poet. He lives in England and has been widely published, including in The Guardian, Edinburgh Review, and Snakeskin. He is currently working on the film adaptation of Baghdad Wedding and writing a second play about Iraq.

Music will be provided by oud player Khyam Allami,who this year was the first recipient of a BBC Radio 3 scholarship titled “World Routes Academy”. A dynamic young London-based musician of Iraqi descent, Khyam has been playing since the age of 8, moving from violin through drums and bass guitar to his present passion for the oud, the Arabic lute. He is currently completing a masters in Performance as Research at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

For more information about the Frome Festival: www.fromefestival.co.uk

Download map and venue list for Festival, click here