Past Events
Banipal is keen to promote live literature events that include Arab authors. Check out this section for news of events that Banipal is organising or is involved in, and for photo reports of past events.
all day
Assilah, Morocco
To see some of the official photos from this year's Assilah Festival, click here
[read more]
8.00pm
Frome Festival
Last year’s first ‘Arab Evening’ of readings, music, and delectable middle eastern dishes proved so popular there will be repeat helpings at Trinity Hall this summer, with Syrian author Ghalia Kabbani and, from Iraq, playwright Hassan Abdulrazzak and oud player Khyam Allami.
[read more]7.45pm
Purcell Room, South Bank Centre, London – Emirati Poets
Khalid Albudoor, Khulood al-Mu’alla and Nujoom al-Ghanem, three successful modernist Emirati poets, have their first London reading with specially commissioned English translations of their works
[read more]2.30-3.30pm
Ledbury Poetry Festival – Iraqi poets
Poetry and Iraq – two poets in the forefront of Iraqi writing today – Fadhil al-Azzawi and Sinan Antoon discuss the place of poetry in Iraq and read from their works
[read more]8.00-10.30pm
Ledbury Poetry Festival – Emirati Poets
Khalid al-Budoor, Khulood al-Mu’alla and Nujoom al-Ghanem, three successful modern Emirati poets, read their works and meet poetry-loving audiences at the annual Ledbury Poetry Festival
[read more]2 – 7pm
Live at Bernie Spain Gardens on the South Bank, London, SE1 9PP
BBC Radio 3's World Routes Academy 2010 – Iraq at Celebrating Sanctuary Festival
An afternoon’s events dedicated to Iraqi culture – live music, spoken word, workshops and discussions
10-13 March 2010
Dubai Festival City
More than 80 authors from around the world converged on Dubai Festival City for the second Emirates Airline International Literature Festival
9.00am to 6.00pm
Frankfurt Book Fair
Visit Banipal at the Frankfurt Book Fair
We're in the International Centre, in Hall 5.0, Stand D912
[read more]
7:00pm to 9:30pm
London Review Bookshop
The London Review Bookshop
The event featured not only the poets Siham Bouhlal and Mustafa Stitou, who came from Paris and the Netherlands respectively, but also the spirit of two others, Hassan Najmi and Ouidad Benmoussa, both of whom should have been there but for the new and infamous privatised system for getting VISAs to come to the UK, which made it impossible for them to make the visit.
[read more]12:45pm / 8:00pm
Ledbury Poetry Festival
The Ledbury Poetry Festival
Two Arab Poetry Events
Two Arabic poetry events, featuring notable Arab poets, at one of the UK's most renowned poetry festivals.
8:00pm to 10:00pm
Frome
Frome Festival 2009
Arab Writing Today
An exciting event, the first of its kind at the Frome Festival: three Arab writers came together to give readings and to talk about their work.
[read more]7pm
London Review Bookshop, 14 Bury Place, London WC1A 2JL
Breaking through: Syrian writers in conversation and performance
Hala Mohammed, Monzer Masri, Rasha Omran, Lukman Derky, four Syrian poets - who are also a film-maker, a painter, an arts festival director, and a journalist / scriptwriter respectively - were seen in conversation (on writing, publishing and the arts in Syria today) – and in performance. Audiences were able to hear readings of poems, newly translated for the latest issue of Banipal 31, which included a major feature on contemporary Syrian literature. Free wine and nibbles were served after the event. [read more]
3.30pm
BBC Radio 4
FIVE SHORT STORIES FROM NORTH AFRICA
published in translation in BANIPAL MAGAZINE
with some republished in the collection SARDINES AND ORANGES, published by Banipal Books
were broadcast, in the English translation, one a day, as below, from Monday to Friday, 5 to 9 May
Produced by Square Dog Productions for Radio 4.
[read more]Syrian Poets in UK
Ledbury Poetry Festival and London Review Bookshop
Ledbury Poetry Festival and London Review Bookshop Hala Mohammad, Monzer Masri, Rasha Omran and Lukman Derky visited the UK for events at the Ledbury Poetry Festival and the London Review Bookshop.
6.00 to 7.30pm
Manchester Central Library
Banipal magazine is the winner of the 2008 Incwriters Outstanding Contribution to Literature (Magazines) award. It was chosen from the short list of ten magazines below and the award presented at a ceremony at Manchester Central Library.
[read more]
7pm
Abu Dhabi
At a splendid award ceremony in Abu Dhabi on 10 March 2008, the chair of judges of the new International Prize for Arabic Fiction, known as the Arab Booker, announced that the inaugural winner of the £50,000 prize was Egyptian author Bahaa Taher for his novel Wahat al-Ghurub [Sunset Oasis].
6.30pm to 9pm
IDEA STORE, WHITECHAPEL, London E1
SMALL AND INDEPENDENT 11
A press publishing talk, Q&A and networking event:
Four publishers and editors shared their experience of setting up a small press and gave advice to guide attendees on their way through the process. Panellists included Shaun Levin, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Margaret Obank, and Chris Hamilton-Emery.
All day each day
FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR
The world’s largest fair for the book trade was attended by even more visitors than last year, over 280,000. Hall 5, home of Frankfurt Book Fair’s International Centre was a veritable hub, housing the Guest of Honour Pavilion for Catalan Culture, as well publishers from the Arab world, South American and African countries, Iran, Turkey, Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Armenia, and many others; also booths for small independent literary publishers, such as Banipal, Dar al-Jamal, and Hans Schiler Verlag. [read more]
11am to 7pm
The Lowry, Salford
Manchester Festival of Literature’s Independents' Day was a day of activities for independent small publishers,mostly local magazine and poetry publishers.
Banipal's stand exhibited and sold magazines and books, including the two new collections of short stories, Mordechai's Moustache and his Wife's Cats and A Retired Gentleman.[read more]
6.30pm for 7pm
Institut Français, 17 Queensberry Place, London
Banipal magazine & the Institut Français
host special reception and poetry reading
to welcome poets from Lebanon
Abdo Wazen, Zeinab Assaf and Bassam Hajjar
2.30pm
Burgage Hall, Ledbury Poetry Festival
FROM
LEBANON
TO LEDBURY
Lebanese poets visited the UK for this exclusive event at the Ledbury Poetry Festival. Two of the poets had never read in the UK before and one is newly translated into English. [read more]
7pm
Poets House, 72 Spring St, 2nd floor, New York
An invitation
to celebrate today’s poets
from Lebanon [read more]
7.00pm
Virgin Megastore Bookshop, Beirut Centre Ville, Beirut
Lebanese author Jad El Hage launches his second novel written in English The Myrtle Tree (Banipal Books) in Beirut. [read more]
9.30am
Amman, Jordan
The 2nd International Translation Conference of the Arab Thought Foundation was held in Amman, 27 and 28 April 2007. An important panel was organised by the Next Page Foundation, which looked at the experience of promoting Arab literature outside the Arab world, and that means, in translation. [read more]
7pm for 7.30pm
Daunt Books, 112-114 Holland Park Avenue, London W11 4UA
A great crowd of friends, journalists, critics, literary agents, publishers and authors, among them Hanan al-Shaykh, Hisham Matar, Aamer Hussein and Amjad Nasser, gathered at Daunt Books for the London launch of The Myrtle Tree.
[read more]
12 noon
London Book Fair, Central Books Stand
Author of The Myrtle Tree Jad El Hage joined the throng of visitors and exhibitors at The London Book Fair's new venue at Earl's Court, just a stone's throw from where he used to live when he was in London. [read more]
All day
17th ABU DHABI INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR
THIS year’s book fair, was organised for the first time in co-operation with the Frankfurt Book Fair and housed in a dedicated ultra-modern exhibition centre. The week-long fair was open every day to the public with free admission; schools took it in turns to attend en masse, from kindergarten to secondary school and university.
[read more]
6pm
Northcote Town Hall, Northcote, Melbourne, Australia
Australians for Lebanon
launched The Myrtle Tree
by Lebanese Australian Jad El Hage, who was introduced by Joe Camilleri, Professor of International Relations, La Trobe University
Organised with the support of Darebin and Australian and Lebanese Historical Society
7pm
Afaq Bookshop, Qasr Al-Aini Street, Cairo
Afaq Bookshop, Qasr Al-Aini Street, Cairo
Samuel Shimon read from his autobiographical novel Iraqi fi Baris
. . . AN IRAQ'S NEVER-ENDING DREAM is reported by Ahmed Maged in the Beirut Daily Star . . .
[read more]
6.30pm
THE IRISH CENTRE, HAMMERSMITH, LONDON W6
At the Hammersmith & Fulham WORDwide Festival, Banipal hosts an evening with three Arab authors who live and write in London. [read more]
all month
ASSILAH, Morocco
Assilah, this small village on the Atlantic, has been host to a major month-long cultural festival since 1978. [read more]
Daytime and evening
Berlin, Germany
Contemporary Arab Representations: The Iraqi Equation was a multi-media cultural project curated and arranged by Catherine David in Berlin’s KW Institute for Contemporary Art in December 2005 and February 2006. [read more]
BANIPAL LIVE TOUR
London, Newcastle, Manchester, Lancaster, Edinburgh, Tyne & Wear, Southwold
The tour brings together four renowned poets and fiction writers from Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon connecting and engaging audiences in the rich and vibrant cultures of these three areas, mainly known in the UK as scenes of war. [read more]
Latest News
09/08/2010Mahmoud Darwish died two years ago on 9 August.
[read more]14/07/2010
Khalid Albudoor, Khulood al-Mu’alla and Nujoom al-Ghanem, three successful modern Emirati poets, have their first London reading with specially commissioned English translations of their works
[read more]19/04/2010
A Literary Translation Centre opens at the 2010 London Book Fair
[read more]19/04/2010
The Internet and Arab Literature, and publishing English literary translations from Arabic
[read more]17/04/2010
For free culture and tolerance – the literary website www.kikah.com celebrates its 8th birthday
[read more]15/04/2010
The BEIRUT39 activities start today, and their Anthology is launched
[read more][read all news stories]