Amin Abbas

DUBAI: The 14th edition of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature drew to a close after an 11-day extravaganza from Feb. 4 – 14 featuring more than 180 authors from 47 countries, and the biggest ever presence of home-grown talent.

The official ceremony on Feb. 4 was attended by Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairperson of Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) and member of the Executive Council of Dubai, and Noura bint Mohammed Al Kaabi, Minister of Culture and Youth. The ceremony also featured well-known authors, who each gave their interpretation of the festival’s theme ‘Here Comes the Sun,’ followed by a joyous performance from Dubai Youth Choir and Repton School Choir.

Ahlam Bolooki, the Director of the Festival, shared with Arab News Japan her feedback about this year’s edition of Emirates Airline Festival of Literature: “We are still living with the COVID-19 pandemic that hit the world more than two years ago, but we wanted to be hopeful & come out of these dark times and the team at the festival did such an amazing job and our international authors came back here in person as everyone learned how to adapt the situation.”

“Our Festival would not be possible without the support of the Board of Trustees of the Emirates Literature Foundation and our many sponsors, especially our title sponsor, Emirates Airline, and our founding partner, Dubai Culture. We thank all our partners and supporters. We are a small team and rely on our wonderful volunteers to be able to run such a large and complex event, and we are deeply thankful for their hard work. Lastly, I would like to give a massive thank you to the Foundation’s team, who work year-round to make the festival a reality,” Bolooki added.

Many sessions throughout the festival were sold out, including the session by the multi-talented top children’s author David Walliams, the dinner with maestro of Italian cooking Alessandro Borghese and the session with Gary Vaynerchuk that provided cutting-edge insights from the entrepreneur. Ahmed Mourad, Azza Fahmy and Ahmed El Ghandour were also popular choices with audiences as were French-Japanese animator Ken Arto, Japanese writer Toshikazu Kawaguchi, House of Gucci writer Sara Gay Forden, and Bridgerton author Julia Quinn. There was also a focus on space travel with NASA astronaut Nicole Stott, and UAE space astronaut Hazzaa Al Mansoori.

Special events included the return of the atmospheric Desert Stanzas, the Festival’s signature evening of world poetry in the desert; a celebration of Charles Dickens’ birthday on 7 February with an invitation to Miss Havisham’s wedding, starring special guest Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, the great-great-great granddaughter of the man himself; and a magical evening at Expo 2020 Dubai with stars of spoken word the incomparable Carlos Andrés Gómez and Dubai’s Dr. Afra Atiq, accompanied musically by Nashville-based singer/songwriter Brent Shuttleworth.

The fun-filled programme for children entertained kids of all ages with particular highlights from Ali Sparkes, Ben Bailey Smith, Polly Dunbar and laughter-filled sessions from Ben Miller, illustrator Rob Biddulph and Layne Redman.

The festival also saw a book launch featuring the stories from the second round of Voices of Future Generations for the Middle East Region, and the announcement of the first cohort of First Chapter, ELF Seddiqi Writers’ Fellowship and the winner of the Emirates LitFest Writing Prize.

A dedicated ‘Education Day’ brought hundreds of students to the festival, with a number of sessions live-streamed directly to classrooms attended by thousands of students. The festival’s children’s competitions winners were celebrated on site with the Royal Grammar School Guildford Dubai Letter Writing Competition, the Oxford University Press Story Writing Competition, Chevron Readers’ Cup and Emirates NBD Poetry for All Competition for poetry performance ceremonies held live in person.

The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature will return in 2023 for its 15th edition.