The PalFest Podcast
Welcome to the first podcast from the Palestine Festival of Literature – a format we’ve been wanting to bring to you for a long time. The PalFest Podcast will highlight new books from and about Palestine, bringing writers together in conversation across borders to discuss new ideas and dig into vital histories. Each episode will feature a different pairing of writers, presented by our co-hosts Beesan Ramadan and Mirza Waheed who, together, will guide us through these unique, essential conversations.
Episodes
Edward Said needs no introductions, but what happens when writers are asked to newly introduce the works that helped define his legacy? In this episode Isabella Hammad, who writes the introduction to a new edition of Said’s “Representations of the Intellectual,” and Hisham Matar, who does the same for his memoir “Out of Place”, discuss Said’s work and their own takes on many of the questions he thought about: the category of “the i...
How do different forms of writing explore ideas that come from our personal and political histories? In Episode 16 of the PalFest podcast, Tareq Baconi and Saleem Haddad discuss their new books – Haddad’s novel Floodlines and Baconi’s memoir Fire in Every Direction – with their questions of family, exile, return, and the possibilities of art.
This episode was recorded at Ibraaz in London on February 11th, 2026.
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On this episode of the PalFest podcast, we mark the launch of the UK edition of Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s Something About Living, published by the 87 Press, at the London Review Bookshop.
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is one of the most influential Palestinian poets working in English today. Her collections have won multiple prizes and her poems have been published across the spectrum of poetry magazines.
So Mayer is a writer, editor, bookseller...
We marked the publication of Ismail Khalidi’s SELECTED PLAYS with this special live event in New York recorded with the playwright and a selection of his special guests.
Tune in to hear excerpts from three of Khalidi’s plays, performed by Khalidi himself, Hind Shoufani, John Early, Ahmed Maher, Leta Levy and an introductory talk with Isabella Hammad.
It was a unique, one off event hosted by Giorno Poetry Systems and co-organized ...
In 2015 Molly Crabapple attended the Palestine Festival of Literature in Palestine. When she returned home she began excavating her family’s history and her great-grandfather’s involvement with the Jewish Bund - a secular, socialist, uncompromisingly anti-Zionist revolutionary movement that reached its zenith in inter-war Europe.
Now, eleven years later, she has written HERE WHERE WE LIVE IS OUR COUNTRY, a popular history of the Je...
In this episode of the PalFest Podcast we have the writer and political theorist, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, in his first extended conversation since being released from prison in Egypt, with the poet and performer, Farah Barqawi.
In this wide-ranging conversation the two friends discuss shared memories of Gaza, where Farah’s family is from and where Alaa visited with PalFest in 2012, distance and alienation, personal crises and more. It...
Episode 11 of the PalFest Podcast: Lina Mounzer, writer, translator and Senior Editor at The Markaz Review in conversation with Jehan Bseiso, poet, translator, aid worker and member of the PalFest organising committee.
In this conversation the two writers discuss the unspeakable versus the unsaid, the emptiness of the word 'ceasefire' and pathways out of cynicism as well as sharing readings of their work and a new Agony Aunt for th...
Episode 10 of the PalFest Podcast: in conversation with Mahmoud al-Shaer, editor, curator and poet.
Mahmoud has long been a key figure in the literary scene in Gaza - a scene that Israel has all but destroyed. He founded a cultural centre in Rafah and the online literary magazine, Magazine 28. He was PalFest's co-producer in Gaza in 2023.
During the genocide many thousands of people got to know Mahmoud through his writings, the p...
In our first episode of 2026, The PalFest Podcast brings you a discussion between two authors on their writing processes, identities and personal experiences. The conversation delves into the complexities of love, trauma, and survival in the face of conflict and displacement.
Hala Alyan's I'll Tell You When I'm Home was published in June 2025 by Simon & Schuster.
Mai Serhan's I Can Imagine It for Us was published in October 202...
In a wide-ranging discussion the two writers compare notes on their experiences of publishing debut novels in English, how their work was packaged, presented and received - and the ways in which that diverged from their intentions when writing.
Saleem Haddad's GUAPA was published in 2016 by Europa Editions to great acclaim. His new novel, FLOODLINES, is about to come out.
Yasmin Zaher's THE COIN was published in 2025 and won the D...
“Israel is a defeated project.” So begins Nasser Abourahme’s monumental essay in PALESTINE IS EVERYWHERE.
Join us for the latest episode of the PalFest Podcast for a deep, structural analysis of Israel’s current strengths and weaknesses, the geopolitical shifts happening all around it and much, much more. It’s a fascinating conversation between Nasser and the book’s senior editor Edwin Nasr - and we’re thrilled to bring it to you f...
In this live recording from The Southbank Centre, Isabella Hammad and Mirza Waheed hold a unique discussion about Palestine, Kashmir and the parallels and divergences in their modern struggles with colonialism.
They discuss art and consciousness around the dual ruptures of 1948, reportage and narration of historical insurgency and their own roles as artists working from within the imperial core.
Date of recording: November 1st, 202...
For episode 5 of The PalFest Podcast, we are thrilled to bring you the award-winning author, lawyer, human rights activist and community volunteer, Randa Abdel-Fattah in conversation with PalFest's own Sara Yasin, a Palestinian-American journalist who was managing editor at the LA Times and Buzzfeed News. They discuss, among other things, Fattah's new book, Discipline, which is the PalFest Bookshelf pick for December & January ...
In this special live recording of The PalFest Podcast, direct from Middle Church NYC we bring you the launch of Fire in Every Direction: A Memoir, Tareq Baconi’s singular coming-of-age story about queer and political awakening from within the Palestinian diaspora. Baconi was joined by Ta-Nehisi Coates in a conversation about personal and political memoir.
Date of recording: October 26th, 2025.
Get the book here (US) or pre-order it...
In the third instalment of The PalFest Podcast we are excited to bring you Laleh Khalili, the esteemed professor and writer in conversation with the authors of Resisting Erasure: Capital, Imperialism and Race in Palestine; Adam Hanieh, Robert Knox & Rafeef Ziadah.
Date of recording: October 13th, 2025.
Subscribe to the PalFest Bookshelf here
Buy a copy of Resisting Erasure here
Find us on our website or our socials:
Insta: @pal...
Ahead of the UK launch of the new anthology of Palestinian poetry, Heaven Looks Like Us, on October 29th, we are thrilled to bring you George Abraham and Noor Hindi, the co-editors, in conversation with Rachael Allen, the poetry editor at Fitzcarraldo Editions.
Date of recording: October 6th, 2025.
Get your tickets for the book launch in London here
Subscribe to the PalFest Bookshelf here
Buy a copy of Heaven Looks Like Us here
For our very first conversation, we are incredibly lucky to have Batool Abu Akleen, brilliant young poet from Gaza, in conversation with Wiam el-Tamami, Egyptian writer and one of Batool’s translator, speaking from Berlin. They will discuss Batool’s landmark debut collection of poems, 48Kg., which critics have described as ‘profound’, ‘vital’, ‘haunting ‘and ‘an extraordinary book of poetry’.
This episode was recorded live between...
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