ADIBF 2012 - Cultural Programme Brochure (EN)

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    Thank you for joining us in our annual celebration of all things literary!

    For its 22nd edition, the book fair offers you once again a wideselection of cultural events: discussions about books on sociology,cinema, travel and the camel; presentations of graphic novels, theaterplays, cook books and science books; special introductions to an Atlasand a poetry encyclopedia; and plenty of childrens literature. We alsoinvite you to attend a writing workshop, a poetry recital and Open Micsessions not forgetting of course numerous cooking demonstrationsat our very popular Show Kitchen!

    We are proud of our ongoing partnership with the International Prize forArabic Fiction and the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, which allows us tobring you exclusive contact with some of the best authors and editorson the Arab literary scene and publishing industry. In this spirit, and

    for the first time, we have created a programme called Signatures forwhich we have invited writers identified by their publishers as authorsof signal and significant books to have appeared during the past twelvemonths. They will be joined by a great number of well-establishedwriters and talented newcomers from all over the Arab world.

    This is an international fair, therefore and as always we open our doorsto foreign literature, welcoming authors from Sweden, India, France,Germany and the USA. This year, our guest of honor is the UnitedKingdom, and we worked hand in hand with British Council to give you

    the opportunity to hear and meet representatives of the vibrant Britishliterary scene. British Council has also organized the Olympiansphotography exhibit on show at ADNEC, as well as many excitingworkshops that we encourage you to attend during the Book Fair (seeschedule on page 44).

    We look very much forward to welcoming you to another exciting, richand interactive book fair!

    WELCOME BACK TO ADIBF

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    Discussion Sofa | Hall 12K50 |This is the place to meet recipients of the International Prize for

    Arabic Fiction and of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, as well asthe winners of other competitions organized by ADIBF and its

    partners. It is also here that we will have panel discussions withauthors from around the world, academics, journalists, essayistsand political analysts. But come here too for some one-on-oneinterviews with famous writers!

    TheTent | Hall 10K06 |Welcome to our new venue! This is inspired by the traditional majlis with a twist In a less formal setting propitious to a relaxed and

    unintimidating atmosphere, the public is invited to meet authors,hear poetry recitals, take part in writing workshops and open micsessions. This is also the place for the younger members of ouraudience to listen to story-telling.

    Signatures andAuthorsCorner | Hall 12E52 |We will host the book-signing sessions of all our guests from theSignatures programme; this venue is also opened to authors not

    featured in the cultural programme but wishing to sign copies oftheir books.

    Show Kitchen | Hall 10J50 |In the convivial atmosphere of a fully appointed kitchen, you areinvited to enjoy cooking demonstrations by chefs and amateurcooks, and to attend sessions run by food specialists andnutritionists. Please refer to the Show Kitchen brochure for theschedule: a mouth-watering programme!

    PROGRAMME LOCATIONS

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    FOREWORD BY DOMINIC JERMEY, HER MAJESTYSAMBASSADOR TO THE UAE

    I am delighted that the UK is guest of honour for Abu Dhabi InternationalBook Fair 2012.

    At a time of uncertainty and change in the region and the wider world,the opportunity for UK authors and publishers to make connectionsand form new partnerships has never been more necessary.

    The UK has the oldest publishing industry in the world, with publishingcompanies acting as key players in the information age.

    The UK, with 120,000 new books published every year, exports morethan any other publishing industry worldwide and, according to UKTI,the UAE is the UKs 13th largest export market, making it the largestmarket in the Middle East.

    The UK focus activities within ADBIF 2012s cultural programme bringstogether UK authors with their counterparts in the UAE and the region,recognising the power of literature and its impact on the world as awindow to greater cultural understanding.

    The year 2012 marks the bicentenary of the UKs most prolific andinfluential novelists: Charles Dickens. British Council is working withover fifty countries to coordinate an exciting range of educational andcultural events of Dickens 2012, with Sketches by Boz competitionand Dickens on Film screenings in the UAE.

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    Every week we help you discover new and excitingfigures on the cultural scene. From authors offering the

    latest essential reading to up-and-coming musicianswho are attracting the industrys attention.

    What better way to start your weekend, than acultural injection of knowledge and inspiration.

    We hope you enjoy reading it as much as wedo writing it.

    Free with your copy ofThe National every Friday

    reviewFriday,February3,2012 www.thenational.ae

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    booksIm against Assad ... and against the Islamist opposition, because I dontwant to fight one despotism for the sake of another, states the poet

    Adonis:alifein writingbyMayaJ aggi,TheGuardian{

    thisweeksessentialreading

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    ollegedays:oreonAUB

    relatedreads =

    he AmericanUniversity ofBeirut

    BettySAnderson

    Sub-titled ArabNationalismand LiberalEducation,Andersonsscholarlytext is anotherhistoryof AUB,[but]onlyone of the manystoriesthat canbe told.

    ThatThey MayHave Life

    StephenBLPenroseJr

    First published in1941tomark AUBs 75thanniversary, Penrosesbook resurfaced inpaperback last year.The authornotes inhisintroductionthat theuni has apenchant foranniversaries inthe midstof [world]war.

    Books about major US universi-ties are typically heavy coffee-tableaffairs, with colourful photos ofgrinning football players, hoaryprofessors and hand-holding cou-ples, posed appealingly by campuslandmarksongloriousspring after-noons.AmericanSheikhs:TwoFami-lies, Four Generations, and the Storyof Americas Influence in the MiddleEast,however,isnoneofthat.

    Instead, the US Naval Academyhistorian Brian VanDeMark, whoseprevious memoir of the former USdefence secretary Robert McNama-ra, was a bestseller, has focused hisnew book on the American Univer-

    ity of Beirut (AUB), while pursuingamuchbroadergoal.

    Specifically, VanDeMark makesUBakind ofstand-inforWashing-

    tons relationship with the MiddleEast: how the US got into the regionin the first place and what its donethere since both good and bad.ThestoryofAUBis alsoametaphorfor something bigger and moreimportant, VanDeMarek writes.Enduring themes of Americanmission, American nationalism,

    mericas encounter with imperi-alistic politics, American idealismand American frustration as a greatpower in the region have all playedoutinvividanddramaticdetail.AUBisthestoryoftwo families,the

    Blisses and the Dodges, whose de-cendants controlled AUB for four

    generations.Itsanunfamiliarstory,VanDeMarkadds,becauseitdoesntconformtotheprevailingnarrativesofoil,Israelandsecurity.

    Indeed, the lack of focus on thosethemes is actually refreshing. With

    merican Sheikhswe learn how, asearly as 1866, the newly foundedSyrian Protestant College in Beirutoffered the Arab world not just anexceptional faculty but somethingrelatively new among the regionsinstitutions of higher learning: freeintellectual enquiry. Its faculty didnot merely fill Arab students heads

    with facts, VanDeMark writes ofAUB. It taught them how to organ-ise and interpret facts. Character-

    building and hard work were othermajor tenets expected of the col-leges all-male students who at-tended classes in an Islamic-styleproperty, built atop a headland onBeiruts outskirts, with glorious

    viewsofStGeorgesBay. Just as AUBs architecture hon-

    oured Arab tradition, so too didits educational philosophy, whichblended Islamic culture with mod-ernconceptsfromtheWest.

    The students, their families, andlocalleadersadmiredthisapproachenough to rapidly fill AUBs ranks.Mostly they admired its founder,the Rev Daniel Bliss, whod cometo them from America. Bliss, whodhadapoorupbringinginruralOhio,

    was a strait-laced Christian mis-sionary whose original official in-tent was to civilise the populacethrough compassionate Christianservice. But Bliss soon realisedthat proselytising Muslims was abad idea because it was antitheti-cal to Islamic culture. ConvertingEastern Christians was equally ill-advised because those Christians Maronists and Orthodox Greeks already considered their Americanbrothersarrogant.

    That impression was deserved:Prot e st ant missionarie s w e nt abroad in those days ingrained

    with notions of their own superior-ity; and westerners impression o

    Arabs, gleaned from The ArabianNight s, was as desert nomadswho lived in an exotic and farawayworld of sand dunes, camels andharems. The term Middle East

    wasnt even popular until 1900; inBlisss day, the region was simplythe Orient.

    Bliss meant to have an impactthere. Having gained a handle onlocal language and customs, heset out to change Middle Easternsociety from within, by education,rather than from without, throughpolitics. Evangelism should give

    way to education, Bliss believed.His ally in this project wasnt so

    much Americas missionary board,whichoversawhiswork,asawealthyAmerican businessman (and reli-giousPuritan),WilliamDodge,whohelped Bliss beat the Jesuits whoalso planned a college in Beirut and get AUB up and running. Wordspreadthatthisnewcollegewasthebest in the Middle East, and power-

    ful leaders from multiple nationsquicklyenrolledtheirsons.

    By 1909, AUB had grown to 1,000st ude nt s; Bliss s middle sonHoward inherited the presidencyand created a melting pot on cam-pusamidacitythathadgrownintoamajorcommercialandculturalcen-tre. Meanwhile, local Arabs had be-guntoforgeasenseof identitysepa-rate from their Turkish and Frenchmasters; VanDeMark posits that

    AUBs environment of free thoughthelped give birth to Arab national-ism.

    That movement grew stronger a-ter the First World War, when Bri t-ainandFrancenotoriously split theregion (with former Ottoman-con-trolled Lebanon and Syria going toFrance),andwhenBritainsBalfourDeclaration pledged support for a

    Jewish homeland in Palestine. TheParis Peace Conference swiftly dis-missed US President Woodrow Wil-

    sons call for self-determination intheregion.

    Meanwhile, a different kind ofchallenge resulted from the ar-rival of modernity in the 1920s. ButBayard Dodge, who had marriedBlisss daughter and become AUBspresident in 1923, responded, ex-pandingtheuniversityscurriculumin Arabic language and culture andmelding together Arab and Jewishstudentsinthedormsandonsportsteams. A young Palestinian studentconfessed that some of his bestfriends were Jews, but: as soon as

    we get back to Jerusalem, I cant al-lowmyself to beseenspeaking withthem. In 1924 AUB even admittedits first woman: she wore two veilsand attended class with her hus-bandintow.

    Between 1920 and 1940, enrol-mentdoubledagain,to2,000;wom-ens numbers also increased, andmenandwomenopenlysocialised.

    ThencametheSecondWorldWar,introducing,forthefirsttime,achillbetweenArabsandtheWest.TheUShadbecomeanetimporterofoil forthe first time and later eyed AUB asanassetintheColdWar.Although Time magazine in 1948

    said of Bayard Dodge that no othermerican had done as much to win

    and keep goodwill for the US in theNear East, those living in the region

    werent so sure. Things hardly im-proved when 14,000 US marineslanded in Lebanon in 1958, in re-sponse to a coup in Iraq, and whenTapline,a2,000kmSaudi-AmericanpipelinefromtheArabianGulf,wasbuilt in that decade right throughLebanon.

    TheArab-Israeliwarof1967 withthe US supporting Israel causedtensions to worsen further; AUBs

    Je w ish e nrolme nt f e ll t o ze ro.Newsweek sarcast ically t agge d

    UB Guerrilla U: Where the cam-

    pus formerly had supplied MiddleEastern countries with presidents,prime ministers, doctors and am-bassadors, now it was producinghijackers and guerrillas, themagazine said. Certainly, Arab stu-dents viewed AUB as a symbol ofimperialism and hypocrisy, andsuch views frustrated Dodge, whofutilely tried to bring the campussmeltingpotbacktogether.Shortlybeforehisdeathin1972,hesaid, Itistruerthaneverbeforethathistoryisaracebetweeneducationandca-tastrophe.

    His words predicted the subse-quent years, as the new disillusion-ment with secularism, together

    with surging Palestinian national-ism, pushed Lebanons MaronitePhalangist minority into a terror-ist act that initiated civil war. US-backed AUB became a bombingtarget of terrorists, and there wasmore: president David Dodge was

    held captive by Hizbollah for a yearin 1982 and his successor, MalcolmKerr,wasassassinatedin1984.

    US marines and soldiers took upresidence in Beirut a terroristbombingin1983killed241of them.ThencamethefirstGulfWarin1991followed by the September 11 at-tacks,andinturnbythe 2006Israeliinvasion of Lebanon in retaliationforHizbollahrocketattacksagainstitscitizens.

    The new generation of MiddleEastern students at AUB and newerinstitutions such as the AmericanUniversity of Kuwait, EducationCityinQatar,andtheAmericanUni-

    versity of Cairo objected to manythings in American policy, an Arabeducator once remarked, exceptfor one thing: American-style edu-cation.

    So w hat is an Ame rican-st yleeducation worth today? mericanSheikhs could have been a dry aca-demic tome, but VanDeMarks vi-brant writing and in-depth report-ing make AUBs story an allegoryabout what it takes to calm ethnicandreligioustensions.

    At AUB, he writes, Arabs andJews and Americans and Muslimsbecame humanly familiar to eachother through dialogue and learnttolerance, and therefore politicallyplausible partners to each other.These components, VanDeMarkadds, are the most powerful andenduring antidotes to extremismof any kind words worth think-ingabouttooas moreandmoreUS-linked institutions, from New YorkUniversity-Abu Dhabi to the Ameri-can University of Sharjah, take rootandflowerintheUAEandacrosstheMiddleEast.

    JoanOleckisa freelancewriterbasedinBrooklyn,NewYork.

    A lessonin tolerance

    Frompage158 Aterriblewind wasgatheringforce.AUBhadalways beenaniconof theUSin theMiddleEast. Nowthaticon hadbecomea targetforthosewho hatedAmerica

    In is vi ranty written new oo , Brian VanDeMar

    takes an in-depth look at the history of the AmericanUniversity o Beirut and its complex and sometimestroubled relationship with the region, writes Joan Olec

    TheAmericanUniversityofBeirutwasestablishedasanalternativetoChristianevangelism,whichwasantitheticaltoIslamicculture.JosephBarrak/AFP

    AmericanSheikhsBrian VanDeMar

    PromotheusBooksDh108

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    Dont miss our weekly

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    15:00 16:00

    The Debut of the Poetry Encyclopedia

    An introduction to the Poetry Encyclopedia, and aglimpse into some of the most important sources ofArabic poetry to date.

    Speaker: Zuhair Ahmed Zaza (editor)Arabic-English l Venue: The Tent

    16:00 17:00

    Interview with the Winner of the Sheikh Zayed Book Awardfor Cultural Personality of the Year

    Brought to you by the Sheikh Zayed Book AwardArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    16:15 17:15

    Meet Marina LewyckaMarina Lewycka is a British novelist of Ukrainianorigins, born in 1946 in a refugee camp in Kiel,Germany. Her family subsequently moved to England.She graduated from Keele University in 1968 withdegrees in English and Philosophy and from theUniversity of York with a degree in English Literature

    in 1969. Ms. Lewyckas debut novel A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian,which has sold more than a million copies in the UK alone, won the 2005 BollingerEveryman Wodehouse Prize for comic writing at the Hay Festival of Literatureand the Arts, the 20056/ Waverton Good Read Award, and the 2005 Saga Awardfor Wit; it was long-listed for the 2005 Man Booker Prize and short-listed forthe 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction. It has been translated into over twenty-ninelanguages. Her second novel, Two Caravans (March 2007, published under thetitle Strawberry Fields in North America) was shortlisted for the 2008 Orwell Prizefor political writing. Ms. Lewyckas third novel We Are All Made of Glue wasreleased in July 2009. She lives in Sheffield, Yorkshire, and works part-time atSheffield Hallam University.

    Hosts: Jody Ballard and Seamus GallagherBrought to you by British CouncilArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: The Tent

    28 MarchWednesday

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    17:30 18:30

    Meet Susan Abulhawa

    Susan Abulhawa was born to refugees of the Six

    Day War of 1967, during which her familys landwas seized and Israel captured what remained ofPalestine, including Jerusalem. She moved to theUnited States as a teenager, eventually earning adegree in biomedical science and establishing a

    career in medical science. In July 2001, Susan Abulhawa founded Playgroundsfor Palestine, a childrens organization dedicated to upholding the right to playfor Palestinian children. Mornings in Jenin is her first novel and is being publishedin nineteen countries. She lives in Pennsylvania with her daughter.

    Host: Fatima Al BeloushiBrought to you by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing

    Arabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: The Tent

    17:30 18:30

    Peering through a WindowUnderstanding and interpreting culture and society through literature

    With Tim Mackintosh-Smith (travel writer), Tishani Doshi (poet), and MarinaLewycka (novelist)

    Host: Anita Sethi

    Brought to you by British CouncilArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    18:45 19:15

    Poetry Reading: Ibrahim Nasrallah

    Ibrahim Nasrallah is a writer, poet, photographer,painter, and film critic, born in Jordan in 1954. His familyhad been uprooted from its homeland in Palestine in1948, and he grew up in Ammans Alwehdat refugeecamp. Trained as a teacher, he started his career in the

    Saudi desert; he reflected on this bitter experience inhis first novel Prairies of Fever, which was chosen by the Guardian in 2010 as oneof the ten best books to portray the Arab World. After returning to Amman, andwhile working as a journalist, Nasrallah continued to write poetry and fiction. Todate, he has published fourteen collections of poetry and fourteen novels and hasreceived several prizes, including the Al-Uweis Literary Award for Arabic poetryin 1997. He is the author of The Palestinian Comedy, a series of seven novelscovering a period of 250 years of modern Palestinian history. His novel The Timeof White Horses was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in2008 and many of his titles have been translated into various languages.

    Arabic l Venue: The Tent

    Mr. Nasrallah will sign his books at the Signatures Corner from 19:30 20:30.

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    Wednesday

    18:45 19:45

    Meet Jasper Fforde

    Jasper Fforde is a British novelist born in 1961. Hiswork has been described as fantasy, sci-fi, comedy,and crimeand is often a mixture of all four. Hisfirst novel The Eyre Affair was published in 2001 andfollows the adventures of his heroine Thursday Nextas she attempts to discover who has kidnapped Jane

    Eyre from the Charlotte Bront novel. A New York Times bestseller and describedas an example of silly books for smart people, it was followed by five sequels.The seventh book is due to be published in spring 2012. Fforde is also engagedin writing three other series: the Nursery Crime series, with The Big Over Easy(2005) and The Fourth Bear (2006); the Shades of Grey series (2009); and afourth series written for young adults, with The Last Dragonslayer (2010) and itssequel, The Song of the Quarkbeast (2011). In 2004, his novel The Well of LostPlots won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction. He lives andworks in Wales.

    Host: Tahira YaqoobBrought to you by British Council

    Arabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    19:30 20:30

    Meet Tishani Doshi

    Tishani Doshi is an award-winning poet and dancerof Welsh-Gujarati descent, born in Madras, India,in 1975. She received her masters degree in writingfrom Johns Hopkins University in the United States,and then worked in London in advertising beforereturning to India in 2001 to join the choreographer

    Chandralekha, with whom she has performed on many international stages.She has written about her many travels in newspapers such as the Guardian,the International Herald Tribune, The Hindu, and The National. She received anEric Gregory Award for poetry in 2001. In 2006, she won the All-India PoetryCompetition, and her book of poems, Countries of the Body, won the ForwardPrize for best first collection. Her first novel, The Pleasure Seekers, was publishedto critical acclaim in 2010, and has been translated into several languages. Doshidivides her time between Cheyyur, Tamil Nadu, and elsewhere. Her new book ofpoems is called Everything Begins Elsewhere.

    Brought to you by British CouncilArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: The Tent

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    19:30 20:30

    Ibrahim NasrallahBook-signing

    Host: Walid AlaeddineArabic l Venue: The Signatures Corner

    20:00 21:00

    Meet the Winner of theInternational Prize for Arabic Fiction 2012

    The nominees are:

    Nasser Iraq (nominated for The Unemployed)graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, CairoUniversity, in 1984. He has worked in cultural journalism in Egypt and co-founded the Dubai Al-Thaqafiya magazine, where he has been managingeditor since 2004. He has published a number ofbooks, including: A History of Journalistic Art in Egypt(2002), which won the Ahmad Bahaa al-Din Prize

    in its first year; Times of the Dust (2006); From the Excess of Love (2008); TheGreen and the Damaged (2009); and The Unemployed (2011). He currently worksas Cultural and Media Coordinator for the Foundation of Culture and ScienceSymposium in Dubai.

    Bashir Mufti (nominated for Toy of Fire) is a writer

    and journalist, born in 1969 in Algiers, Algeria. He haspublished a number of short story collections andnovels, including: Archipelago of Flies (2000); Witnessof the Darkness (2002); Perfumes of the Mirage(2005); Trees of the Resurrection (2007); and Maps ofNightly Passion (2009). Some of his works have been

    translated into French. He also publishes frequent articles in the Arabic press,and he works in Algerian television as assistant producer of the cultural programMaqamat.

    Jabbour Al Douaihy(nominated for The Vagrant) wasborn in Zgharta, in northern Lebanon, in 1949. He holdsa Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Sorbonneand teaches French literature at the University ofLebanon. To date, he has published seven works offiction, including novels, short stories, and childrensbooks. His novel June Rain was short-listed for the

    inaugural IPAF in 2008, and will be published in English by Bloomsbury QatarFoundation Publishing in October 2012.

    Rabee Jaber (nominated for The Druze of Belgrade)is a Lebanese novelist and journalist, born in Beirutin 1972. He has served as editor of Afaq, the weekly

    cultural supplement of Al-Hayat newspaper, since2001. His first novel, Master of Darkness, won theCritics Choice Prize in 1992. He has since written

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    sixteen novels, including: Black Tea; The Last House; Yusuf the Englishman; TheJourney of the Granadan (published in German in 2005); Berytus: A City Beneaththe Earth (published in French by Gallimard in 2009); and America, which wasshortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2010.

    Ezzedine Choukri Fishere (nominated for Embraceon the Brooklyn Bridge) is an Egyptian writer anddiplomat. Born in Kuwait in 1966, he grew up in Egyptand graduated from Cairo University in 1987 with aB.A. in Political Science. After graduation, he attendeda number of universities in France and Canada and

    attained an International Diploma in Administrationfrom the National School of Administration, Paris (199092). He went on to earn amasters degree in International Relations from Ottawa University (199295) anda doctorate in Political Science from Montreal University (199398). He currentlyteaches political science at the American University in Cairo, and also lectures ata number of other universities. In addition, he writes political articles for severalArabic, English, and French periodicals and newspapers.

    Habib Selmi (nominated for Women of al-Basatin)was born in al-Ala, Tunisia, in 1951. He has publishedeight novels and two collections of short stories. He

    has had stories translated into English, Norwegian,Hebrew, and French, and his novels have beentranslated into English, French, German, and Italian.His first novel, Jabal al-anz (Goat Mountain), and

    Ushashaqq Baya (Bayas Lovers) were both published in French translation, in1999 and 2003. His other novels include Surat badawi mayyit (Picture of a DeadBedouin), 1990; Matahat al-raml (Sand Labyrinth), 1994; Hufar dafia (WarmPits), 1999; and Asrar Abdallah (Abdallahs Secrets), 2004. His novel TheScents of Marie-Claire was short-listed for the IPAF in 2009. An English translationof the book was published by the American University in Cairo Press in 2010.Habib Selmi has lived in Paris since 1985.

    Host: Dr Maan Al TaieBrought to you by the International Prize for Arabic FictionArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    Wednesday

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    10:00 11:00

    Love Reading!A session for parents, teachers, and librarians: get tips on

    how to encourage children to read!Speakers:

    Philip Ardagh, whose very first Grubtown Talewon him the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, is author ofnumerous books including the award-winning Eddie

    Dickens adventures, currently available in over thirtylanguages. He wrote BBC radios first truly interactiveradio drama, collaborated with Sir Paul McCartney onhis first childrens book, and is a regularly irregular

    reviewer of childrens books for the Guardian. Married with a son, he divides histime between Tunbridge Wells and Grubtown, where he cultivates an impressivebeard.

    Samar Mahfouz Barraj is a Lebanese teacher andchildrens books author. She holds a B.A. and aTeaching Diploma from the American University ofBeirut. She is married and has two daughters. Shepublished her first book Lam akun aqsad (I DidntMean It) in 2007, followed by twenty-nine other titles,four of which were long-listed and short-listed for the

    Etisalat Award for Arabic Childrens Literature in 2010 and 2011. Ms. Barraj haswritten poems and songs for children, worked for educational publishers, andtranslated twenty-three childrens books into Arabic from French, English, andItalian. She also runs workshops for teachers about library activities and how tomake learning Arabic fun.

    Priscilla Bailyhas worked as a Reader/Audience Development Officer for overten years, promoting books and reading in libraries. She also served as a trainer

    for The Reading Agency, where she organized various regional and nationalpublic library-based initiatives in the UK. She is passionate about libraries rolein promoting the pleasure of reading to the widest possible audience.

    Brought to you by British CouncilArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    29 MarchThursday

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    10:30 11:30

    Taghreed Najjar Reads to Children

    Taghreed Najjar is the author of forty-six Arabicbooks for children aged 312, among them Who Hidthe Eid Lamb, which was translated into English andpublished in World Literature Today in January 2005.Some of her other stories have been translated andpublished in Chinese and French magazines. An

    animated version of her book al-Ghoul (The Monster) was featured as a segmenton Palestinian Sesame Street in 2003. One of her most critically acclaimed worksis the Halazone Series (ten books illustrated by the well-known Syrian artistLujaina Al Aseel). The stories deal with everyday childhood issues. Several ofTaghreed Najjars books have been adopted as supplementary reading in schoolsall over the Arab world. Recently, Ms. Najjar compiled and produced a collectionof Arabic nursery rhymes in book and digital form, and two of her books havebeen turned into apps. She is the founder and CEO of Al Salwa Publishing House.

    Arabic l Venue: The Tent

    12:00 13:00Taghreed Najjar

    Book-signing

    Host: Walid AlaeddineArabic l Venue: Signatures Corner

    12:00 13:00

    Tales from around the World

    A collection of stories compiled by the Diplomatic Group for the Spouses ofAmbassadors UAE

    English l Venue: The Tent

    12:15 13:15

    ...Where the Heart IsA discussion on how the idea of home affects writing

    With Sally Butcher (cookbook writer), Tim Mackintosh-Smith (travel writer), Tishani

    Doshi (poet), and Susan Abulhawa (novelist)Brought to you by British CouncilArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    Thursday

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    13:30 14:30

    Abdel Bari Atwan

    Born in a Palestinian refugee camp during the early

    years of the Israeli occupation, Abdel Bari Atwanspent his childhood in Palestine, before later studyingmedia and journalism at Cairo University and politicsin London. One of the worlds leading experts oncurrent affairs in the Middle East, Atwan is a media

    consultant to the BBC, CNN, and other networks, and a contributor to leadingnewspapers and magazines such as the Guardian, The Times, The Economistand Newsweek, as well as various Arabic language publications. He is the authorof The Secret History of Al-Qaida and A Country of Words (Saqi, 2006 and 2008),and has published numerous studies on Middle East affairs.

    Host: Achraf El Bahi

    Arabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    Mr. Atwan will sign his books at the Signatures Corner on Friday, 30 March from17:00 18:00.

    13:30 14:30

    Christophe BlainGraphic novel author

    Brought to you by Institut Franais UAE l Venue: TheTent

    15:00 16:00

    Samar Barraj Reads to Children

    Samar Mahfouz Barraj is a Lebanese teacher andchildrens books author. She holds a B.A. and aTeaching Diploma from the American University ofBeirut. She is married and has two daughters. Shepublished her first book Lam akun aqsad (I DidntMean It) in 2007, followed by twenty-nine other

    titles, four of which were long-listed and short-listed for the Etisalat Award forArabic Childrens Literature in 2010 and 2011. Ms. Barraj has written poems andsongs for children, worked for educational publishers, and translated twenty-three childrens books into Arabic from French, English, and Italian. She also runsworkshops for teachers about library activities and how to make learning Arabicfun.

    Arabic-English l Venue: The Tent

    Followed by a book-signing at the Signatures Corner from 16:30 17:30

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    16:00 17:00

    Al-Karmel al-Jadid of Hassan KhaderA new look for a Palestinian cultural landmark

    Hassan Khader, born in 1953, is a Palestinian writerand literary critic and is chief editor of the literary journalAl-Karmel, which is published in Ramallah, Amman,and as of recently, Cairo. His most well-known worksinclude Wanderland, 2007; Ard al-ghazallah (Land

    of the Deer), 2003; and Hawyat al-akhar (Identity of the Other), 1997. He hasstudied English literature and has translated many books into Arabic, includingThe Disenchantment of the Orient by Gil Eyal (2009). In 1997, he was awarded thePalestinian Prize for Literature and Art.

    Host: Kadhem JihadArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    16:15 17:15

    ILYA, Illustrator

    ILYA is the penname of Ed Hillyer, a comic strip writer,artist, and editor. His works have been published byMarvel, DC, and Dark Horse in the United States,Kodansha in Japan, and numerous independentcompanies worldwide. His books include Its Dark inLondon (new edition for 2012 from Self Made Hero)

    and the award-winning graphic novel series The End of the Century Club, as wellas a debut prose novel, The Clay Dreaming (Myriad Editions, 2010). His clientshave included the BBC, the Royal Academy of Arts, and the newspapers TheTimes and the Guardian. For 2012, hes been collaborating, so far, with both SirArthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens. He also designs and teaches workshopsand courses on the art of comics and manga for colleges, galleries, libraries, andschools, across the UK as well as abroad.

    Brought to you by British Council l Arabic-English l Venue: The Tent

    16:30 17:30

    Samar BarrajBook-signing

    Host: Walid AlaeddineArabic l Venue: Signatures Corner

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    17:30 - 18:30

    Kirsten Boie on writing for teenagersNew Books for Emirati Teens

    Kirsten Boie will conduct a workshop for talentedEmirati authors of teen novels, where she will talkabout the challenges of writing for a teenage audienceand will read from her bestselling novel Alhambra(translated into Arabic in 2011). She looks forward to

    meeting teenage readers from the UAE, Germany, and elsewhere!

    Kirsten Boie is one of Germanys best-known authors of childrens and youngadult books. Born in Hamburg in 1950, she holds a doctorate in Literary Studiesfrom Hamburg University. She worked as a teacher until the adoption of her firstchild, when she turned to writing for children. She has published one hundredbooks to date, many of them translated into other languages. She has receivedseveral major German and European childrens book awards and has beendecorated with the German Federal Cross of Merit First Class.

    Brought to you by the Goethe-Institut Gulf RegionArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: The Tent

    17:30 18:30

    On Travel Writing WithTim Mackintosh-Smith

    Winner of the 1998 Thomas Cook/Daily TelegraphPrize for travel literature for his book Yemen, Tim hassince devoted himself to retracing the fourteenth-century travels of Ibn Battutah across threecontinents. In addition to a trilogy of travel books and

    a BBC television series, his project also resulted in his editing Ibn Battutahs ownTravels. Tim has lectured on Arabic travel literature at Harvard University and theRoyal Geographical Society, London, and was historical consultant for the filmJourney to Mecca. He contributed the entry on Ibn Battutah to the new edition ofthe Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. The third book of his Ibn Battutahtrilogy, Landfalls, won him the 2010 Oldie Best Travel Writer award. In December

    2010, he was awarded the Ibn Battutah Prize of Honour by the Arab Centre forGeographical Literature. More recently, Newsweek magazine listed him as oneof the twelve finest travel writers of the past hundred years. Tim has an M.A. inOriental Studies from Oxford University. He has translated extensively from Arabicand writes regularly for many publications. He is a Fellow of the Royal AsiaticSociety of Great Britain, and a former Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre forMiddle Eastern and Islamic Studies in the University of Durham.

    Host: Aisha BilkhairBrought to you by British CouncilArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: Discussion Sofa

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    18:45 19:45

    Meet Philip Ardagh

    Philip Ardagh, whose very first Grubtown Talewon him the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, is author ofnumerous books including the award-winning EddieDickens adventures, currently available in over thirtylanguages. He wrote BBC radios first truly interactiveradio drama, collaborated with Sir Paul McCartney on

    his first childrens book, and is a regularly irregular reviewer of childrens booksfor the Guardian. Married with a son, he divides his time between Tunbridge Wellsand Grubtown, where he cultivates an impressive beard.

    Host: Nick MarchBrought to you by British CouncilArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: The Tent

    19:00 20:00

    Conversation with Ibrahim Nasrallah

    Ibrahim Nasrallah is a writer, poet, photographer,painter, and film critic, born in Jordan in 1954. His familyhad been uprooted from its homeland in Palestine in1948, and he grew up in Ammans Alwehdat refugeecamp. Trained as a teacher, he started his career in theSaudi desert; he reflected on this bitter experience in

    his first novel Prairies of Fever, which was chosen by the Guardian in 2010 as oneof the ten best books to portray the Arab World. After returning to Amman, andwhile working as a journalist, Nasrallah continued to write poetry and fiction. Todate, he has published fourteen collections of poetry and fourteen novels and hasreceived several prizes, including the Al-Uweis Literary Award for Arabic poetryin 1997. He is the author of The Palestinian Comedy, a series of seven novelscovering a period of 250 years of modern Palestinian history. His novel The Timeof White Horses was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in2008 and many of his titles have been translated into various languages.Host: Susan Abulhawa

    Arabic-English l Venue: Discussion SofaMr. Nasrallah will sign his books at the Signatures Corner on Wednesday, 28March from 19:30 20:30.

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    20:15 21:30

    Arabic Fiction Taking Risks: Writers on the EdgeA conversation between short-listed authors of the IPAF 2012

    Host: Dr Maan Al TaieArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    20:30 21:30

    Habib El SayeghBook-signing

    Born in Abu Dhabi in 1955, Habib El Sayeghgraduated university with a degree in Philosophy in

    1977, and earned his M.A. in Comparative Linguisticsfrom London University in 1998. El Sayegh has held

    various jobs in the field of media and was editor-in-chief of the Cultural Papersmagazine (19821995), which had a deep impact on the local and region-widecultural scene. El Sayegh works as a consultant and as editor-in-chief of Dar AlKhalij. He is chairman of the board of directors of the Union of Emirati Writers,assistant secretary general of the Union of Arabic Writers, head of the committeeof journalistic ethics in the United Arab Emirates, and general manager of theSultan bin Zayed Center for Media and Culture.El Sayegh is considered a pioneering figure in the new poetic movement in theUAE and the Arab Gulf. His ten volumes of poetry have been translated into many

    languages, and his Collected Poems will be presented during ADIBF 2012.Host: Walid AlaeddineArabic l Venue: Signatures Corner

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    16:15 17:15

    The difficulties of writing for childrenWith Dr. Fatima Al Mazrouei and Aicha Abdullah

    Dr. Fatima Hamad Al Mazrouei is an Emirati writerand academic. She is the author of Representationsof the Other in Pre-Islamic Literature (2007) and al-Munafarat in Pre-Islamic Literature (2010). Shepublished her collection of short fiction Day of the

    Deer in 2010, and two childrens stories in 2012.Aicha Abdullah, who holds a teaching diploma, is achildrens book writer. She has also published a shortstory which won the Ghanem Ghobash Award. Shereceived the Creativity Award for UAE women fromthe Girls Club in Sharjah.

    Host: Micheline HabibArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    16:30 17:30Taleb Al Rifai

    Taleb Al Rifai is a Kuwaiti writer born in 1958. Hestudied civil engineering at Kuwait University, andstarted writing while still an undergraduate. He haspublished fifteen works of fiction to date, includingcollections of short stories and novels, and receivedthe Kuwait National Award of Arts and Literature in2002 for his novel The Scent of the Sea. Mr. Al Rifai

    has produced numerous research papers as well, on both literary and cultural

    subjects, and he regularly writes columns for various Kuwaiti newspapers. He hasorganized many cultural events in his country and abroad, and was the Chairmanof the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2009.

    Host: Adel KhozamArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: The Tent

    17:00 18:00

    Abdel Bari AtwanBook-signing

    Host: Walid AlaeddineArabic l Venue: Signatures Corner

    30 MarchFriday

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    17:30 18:30

    The Life and Adventures of LiteratureBringing stories and literary characters to different audiences

    A screening of David Copperfield, an eight-minute silent movie produced byThomas Bentley in 1913, followed by a discussion with the writer Jasper Ffordeand the illustrator ILYA.

    Brought to you by British CouncilArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    18:00 19:00

    Tishani Doshi Performs her Poetrywith Bahareh Amadi

    Brought to you by British Council l Venue: The Tent

    18:30 19:30

    Amir Taj Al SirBook-signing

    Amir Taj Al Sir is a Sudanese writer born in 1960. Hestudied medicine in Egypt and at the British RoyalCollege of Medicine. He has published fourteenbooks, including novels, biographies, and collectionsof poetry. His most important works include The

    Dowry of Cries, The Copts Worries, The French Perfume, and The Crawling of theAnts. Some of his works have been translated into French, and three novels arecurrently being translated into French, English, and Italian.

    Host: Walid AlaeddineArabic l Venue: Signatures Corner

    19:00 - 20:00Conversation with Emily Nasrallah

    Emily Nasrallah is a novelist, journalist, freelancewriter, teacher, lecturer, and womens rights activist,born in 1931 in Kfeir, South Lebanon. She belongsto a group of Lebanese women writers known as theBeirut Decentrists, who stayed in Beirut during theLebanese civil war, shared the experience of it, and

    wrote about the conflict. She studied at the Beirut University College (now theLebanese American University) and then at the American University of Beirut,where she received a B.A. in Education in 1958. She started her journalistic andwriting career while still in college. In 1957, she married Philip Nasrallah, withwhom she had four children. Her first novel, Birds of September (now in its tenth

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    edition), was published in 1962 and earned her three Arabic literary prizes. It wasfollowed by seven novels, four childrens books, and seven short story collectionsthat explore themes such as family roots, Lebanese village life, the war in Lebanon,and the struggle of women for independence and self-expression. Her novel FlightAgainst Time was published in English in 1998 by the University of Texas Press.She is the author of the six-volume series Nisaa Raidat, which profiles pioneeringwomen from the East and the West.

    Host: Afaf BatainehArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    19:30 20:30Tim Mackintosh-Smith, World Traveler

    One of the worlds greatest living travel writers. The National

    Winner of the 1998 Thomas Cook/Daily TelegraphPrize for travel literature for his book Yemen, Tim hassince devoted himself to retracing the fourteenth-century travels of Ibn Battutah across three continents.

    In addition to a trilogy of travel books and a BBC television series, his project also

    resulted in his editing Ibn Battutahs own Travels. Tim has lectured on Arabic travelliterature at Harvard University and the Royal Geographical Society, London,and was historical consultant for the film Journey to Mecca. He contributedthe entry on Ibn Battutah to the new edition of the Oxford Encyclopedia of theIslamic World. The third book of his Ibn Battutah trilogy, Landfalls, won him the2010 Oldie Best Travel Writer award. In December 2010, he was awarded theIbn Battutah Prize of Honour by the Arab Centre for Geographical Literature.More recently, Newsweek magazine listed him as one of the twelve finest travelwriters of the past hundred years. Tim has an M.A. in Oriental Studies from OxfordUniversity. He has translated extensively from Arabic and writes regularly for manypublications. He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain, and a

    former Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Middle Eastern and IslamicStudies in the University of Durham.

    Host: Alia YunisBrought to you by British CouncilArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: The Tent

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    20:15 21:00

    Arabic Fiction in a Changing WorldA discussion between major literary witnesses of our times

    Speakers:Rachid Boudjedra is an Algerian poet, novelist,essayist, playwright, and educator, born in An Bedain 1941. He grew up in Constantine and Tunis, andtook an active part in the Algerian independencemovement. He studied philosophy in Algiers andParis, graduating from the Sorbonne with a doctoraldissertation on L.F. Cline. He taught for a while in

    Algeria, France, and Morocco. Boudjedra is a prolific writer, whose first novel, LaRpudiation (The Repudiation), 1969, gained notoriety because of its explicitlanguage and frontal assault on Muslim traditionalism in contemporary Algeria.He was hailed as the leader of a new movement of experimental fiction. His latestbook, Les Figuiers de Barbarie (Grasset, 2010), was awarded the Prix du RomanArabe.

    Ibrahim Al Koni was born in 1948 in the southernLibyan desert near Gadams. He spent his childhoodin the desert as a member of a tribe of Tuareg, learningArabic only at the age of twelve. He was schooled in anancient oasis town near where he grew up. After a briefcareer as a journalist he went on to study philosophyand literature at the renowned Maxim Gorky Institute

    in Moscow. In 1974, while still a student, he published his first literary work. Heworked at the Libyan Cultural Institute in Moscow and as a journalist and editor ata cultural magazine in Poland before moving to Switzerland in 1993, where he haslived ever since. His oeuvre now spans more than sixty titles, including Anubis: ADesert Novel, Gold Dust, The Animists, The Bleeding of the Stone, The Puppet,and The Seven Veils of Seth. His works have been translated into all the majorlanguages and have won him literary prizes both numerous and prestigious.

    Host: Khaled OmarArabic-English l Venue: Discussion SofaMr. Al Koni will sign his books at the Signatures Corner on Saturday, 31 Marchfrom 15:00 16:00.

    20:45 21:45

    Imagination Running WildCreating imaginary worlds and depicting the unbelievable

    through fiction and illustrationA discussion among Philip Ardagh, Jasper Fforde, and ILYA.

    Brought to you by British CouncilArabic-English l Venue: The Tent

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    31 MarchSaturday

    10:00 10:45

    Affaf Tobbala Reads to Children

    Affaf Tobbala, hailing from Egypt, is a childrens bookauthor, an established film director, a screenwriter, anda producer of short documentaries. She has receivedmany awards, among them the Sheikh Zayed BookAward for childrens literature for her book The Houseand the Palm Tree.

    Arabic l Followed by a book-signing at the Signatures Corner from 11:00 12:00Venue: The Tent

    11:00 12:00

    Affaf TobbalaBook-signing

    Host: Walid AlaeddineArabic l Venue: Signatures Corner

    11:15 12:15

    Ready, Set, Read!Reading activities for children

    Philip Ardagh, whose very first Grubtown Talewon him the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, is author ofnumerous books including the award-winning EddieDickens adventures, currently available in over thirtylanguages. He wrote BBC radios first truly interactive

    radio drama, collaborated with Sir Paul McCartney on his first childrens book,and is a regularly irregular reviewer of childrens books for the Guardian. Marriedwith a son, he divides his time between Tunbridge Wells and Grubtown, wherehe cultivates an impressive beard.

    With Priscilla Baily.Brought to you by British CouncilEnglish l Venue: The Tent

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    11:30 12:30

    Al Dokhab: A postmodern story

    Fatima Abdullah is an Emirati writer and filmmaker.

    She has published a collection of short stories, AlDokhab, and a novel, Manuscripts of the Khawaja Antoine. A socially educated activist, she holds adiploma in Film and Television Directing; her first film,based on her story Spirit, won the best Emirati film

    and the best short feature film prizes at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival 2011, forwhich she thereby received the prestigious Black Pearl award.

    Host: Mohamed Eid IbrahimArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    12:30 13:30Food for Thought: Writing about Eating

    With cookbook authors Sally Butcherand Ariana Bundy

    Sally Butcher blundered into catering by accidentafter dropping out of a Classics degree at UniversityCollege London. She worked in a wide variety ofcatering ventures, from being a chambermaid in

    Devon to cooking for ungrateful expats in Spain. She met her husband Jamshidwhile they were managing different outlets of the same restaurant chain. As theyare both rather fond of food, they set up their own import company, bringing thepick of Persia to British customers. As such they are now one of the best-knownIranian cookery suppliers in the country. Sally had always wanted to be a writer, soshe started producing monthly newsletters for her customers filled with Persianrecipes and other information about the cuisine, which grew into her first book,Persia in Peckham. Veggiestan, her second book, offers more of the same: afunny mix of stories, shoplore, and tidbits she picks up from her customers. Andsome recipes, of course!

    Ariana Bundyis an American-Iranian chef andcookbook writer. She graduated from Le Cordon Bleu

    and Le Ntre in Paris, trained at Fauchon Ptisserie,and was head pastry chef for the Mondrian Hotel inLos Angeles. She lives much of the year in Paris withher family, but her roots are firmly planted in Persiansoil. With the writing of her sumptuous and visuallystunning cookbook Pomegranates and Roses, she

    feels she is finally home; having travelled extensively to Tehran and the landsand villages of her forbears, she reclaims thousands of years of Irans incredibleculinary heritage and evokes an elegant and exotic culture where food and familyare a priority.

    Host: James BrockBrought to you by British CouncilArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: The Tent

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    13:00 14:00

    Saad SowayanOn Arab Heritage and Oral Literature

    Saad Sowayan, Ph.D., is a professor of anthropologyand folklore at King Saud University. He has publishedarticles in Arabic and English on the oral literature andspoken language of the Arabian nomads. His ongoingfieldwork in Saudi Arabia reaches into the oldest and

    most longstanding traditions of preliterate Arabic. Dr Sowayans publications offerremarkable ethnographic standards of concrete evidence in oral Arabian genres,stylistic features, and formal organization. His major works in English are NabatiPoetry: The Oral Poetry of Arabia (1985) and The Arabian Oral Historical Narrative:An Ethnographic and Linguistic Analysis (1992). In 2010, he published The Days ofthe Early Arabs: Mythologies and Orality in History and Literature in the NorthernArab Peninsula.

    Host: Aisha BilkhairArabic-English l Venue: Discussion SofaMr. Sowayan will sign his books at the Signatures Corner from 18:00 19:00.

    13:45 15:15Open Mic

    Take the stage!

    A unique opportunity for members of the public to display their performing talent:we invite you to pick up the microphone and recite a text of your choicealllanguages are welcome. Thank you for sharing your love of words!

    Venue: The Tent

    14:30 16:00Sketching the City: A Tribute to Charles Dickens

    Charles Dickens began his first attempts at authorship in 1836 under thepseudonym Boz, wandering around London and capturing the essenceand character of the city in short narratives. British Council UAE called on allaspiring artists to follow Dickens lead and depict the distinctive character oftheir city through media such as texts, sketches, and paintings. The speakers willannounce the winners of this Sketches by Boz competition, and then engage ina discussion on Charles Dickens legacy.

    Speakers: Philip Ardagh and ILYABrought to you by British CouncilArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

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    15:00 16:00

    Ibrahim Al KoniBook-signing

    Ibrahim Al Koni was born in 1948 in the southernLibyan desert near Gadams. He spent his childhoodin the desert as a member of a tribe of Tuareg, learningArabic only at the age of twelve. He was schooled inan ancient oasis town near where he grew up. After

    a brief career as a journalist he went on to study philosophy and literature atthe renowned Maxim Gorky Institute in Moscow. In 1974, while still a student,he published his first literary work. He worked at the Libyan Cultural Institute inMoscow and as a journalist and editor at a cultural magazine in Poland beforemoving to Switzerland in 1993, where he has lived ever since. His oeuvre nowspans more than sixty titles, including Anubis: A Desert Novel, Gold Dust, The

    Animists, The Bleeding of the Stone, The Puppet, and The Seven Veils of Seth. Hisworks have been translated into all the major languages and have won him literaryprizes both numerous and prestigious.

    Host: Walid AlaeddineArabic l Venue: Signatures Corner

    15:30 16:30

    Ali Live!Get tips from the cultural expert Ali Alsaloom

    Ali Alsaloom will present his popular Ask AliLiveshow, an unintimidating and interactive introductionto Emirati culture that will help expats and Emiratisalike understand social challenges in the multiculturalsociety of the UAE. This is a great opportunity to ask

    questions you always wanted to ask an Emirati, but never dared!

    Ali Alsaloom is an Emirati cultural expert and one of the fastest-rising mediapersonalities and most charismatic public speakers in the Gulf. His internet portalask-ali.com has become one of the most comprehensive and authentic sources ofinformation about culture and heritage for the UAE and the Gulf region. His themed

    Ask Ali shows, weekly columns in M magazine, and cultural guidebooks aboutAbu Dhabi and Dubai reach an international audience. Ali is the Environmental Ambassador of the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi and was honored for hissuccess as an entrepreneur with the Khalifa Fund Business Award 2010.

    Arabic-English l Venue: The Tent

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    Saturday

    16:30 17:30

    Arab and Muslim Voices in North AmericaOn identity and integration

    Speakers:

    James J. Zogby, born 1945, is the author of ArabVoices and the founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, D.C.-basedorganization that serves as a political and policyresearch arm of the Arab-American community. He isa senior analyst with his brothers polling firm, ZogbyInternational, and is a lecturer and scholar on Middle

    East issues. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the DemocraticNational Committee. Since 1992, Zogby has written Washington Watch, a weeklycolumn on American politics for major Arab newspapers, which is publishedin fourteen Arab and South Asian countries. He has authored several books,including What Ethnic Americans Really Think and What Arabs Think: Values,Beliefs and Concerns. He also blogs at The Huffington Post and is a member ofPoliticos Arena. Zogby hosts a weekly interview and call-in discussion program,Viewpoint with James Zogby, about Middle East and world issues on Abu Dhabi

    Television which is broadcast in America on Link TV, DirecTV, and Dish Network.The show has won an award at the Cairo Radio/Television Festival.

    Wajahat Ali is a playwright, attorney, new media journalist, and humorist. He is the lead writerand researcher for Fear Inc., The Roots of theIslamophobia Network in America, an investigativereport published by the Center for American Progress.His award-winning play The Domestic Crusaders isone of the first major plays published about Muslim

    Americans. He writes commentary pieces for the Guardian, The Huffington Post,Salon, The Washington Post, and other outlets. He is the associate editor ofAltmuslim.com and a contributing editor to Islamic Monthly and Illume magazine.He was recognized as an Influential Muslim Artist by the U.S. State Department,an Emerging Muslim American artist by the Muslim Public Affairs Council, anda Muslim Leader of Tomorrow for his work in journalism. He is currently writingan HBO pilot with writer Dave Eggers about a Muslim American cop. He blogs atGoatmilk.

    Host: Alia YunisArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: Discussion Sofa

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    17:00 18:00

    Robert Irwin

    Robert Irwin is a British writer and publisher, born in 1946. He taught medieval

    history at the University of St Andrews and lectured on Arabic and MiddleEastern history at the universities of London, Cambridge, and Oxford. He is thecommissioning editor for the Times Literary Supplement for the Middle East andcontributes regularly to a number of newspapers and journals in the UK and theUnited States. He has published six novels, including The Arabian Nightmare andThe Mysteries of Algiers, and ten works of nonfiction, among them The ArabianNights: A Companion, Islamic Art, Night and Horses and the Desert: An Anthologyof Classical Arabic Literature, The Alhambra, For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalistsand their Enemies, and Memoirs of a Dervish: Sufis, Mystics and the Sixties. Hislatest work, Camel, is being translated into Arabic by Kalima.

    Host: Matthew ElliotBrought to you by Kalima l Arabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue:The Tent

    18:00 19:00

    Saad SowayanBook-signing

    Host: Walid AlaeddineArabic l Venue: Signatures Corner

    18:00 19:00Conversation with Alia Mamdouh

    Alia Mamdouh is an Iraqi writer born in Baghdadin 1944. She graduated in 1971 with a degree inPsychology from the Mustansariya University inBaghdad, and then worked as editor and editor-in-chief for various Arab magazines and newspapers.She left Iraq in 1982, and from 19831990 was in

    charge of the cultural section of the daily Saudi newspaper Al-Riyadh in Rabat,Morocco. She has contributed essays and articles to numerous Arab journalsand magazines such as Al-Karmel, Al-Quds al-Arabi, An-Nahar, and Al-Hayat.Alia Mamdouh has published two short stories: Iftitahiya lil-dhahk (1973) andHawamish ila Sayida B. (1977),and five novels: Layla wa-l-dhib (1981), Habbatal-Naftaleen (Naphthalene, 1986), al-Wala (The Passion, 1993, translated intoGerman and French), al-Ghulama (2000), and al-Mahbubat (The Loved Ones,2003, published in English by the American University in Cairo Press in 2005), whichwon the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2004 as the best novel of the year.Naphthalene has been translated into many languages, and is part of the curriculaat many prestigious universities such as Columbia University in New York andthe Sorbonne, as well as a topic of many theses and comparative studies.Alia Mamdouh currently lives in Paris.

    Host: Dr. Salah HuweidiArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: Discussion Sofa

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    Saturday

    18:30 19:30

    Body language and the language of poetryin the Millions Poet programme

    With Nadia Buhannad

    Nadia Buhannad holds a doctorate degree inEducational Psychology and Gifted Education fromthe University of Arizona. She is the founder andgeneral manager of Sikologia Consultancy in Abu

    Dhabi, and regularly works as a psychology consultantfor television shows such the Millions Poet program.She writes articles for newspapers, which she has

    published in two volumes, and she has contributed pieces to three compilations.Her latest book, Willing, combines interviews with the community, psychoanalysis,and literature.

    Host: Adel KhozamArabic - English l Venue: The Tent

    19:15 20:45Zahras Paradise

    Or, how to understand our world through graphic novels

    Khalil and Amir are the authors of Zahras Paradise,a graphic novel translated into twelve languagesbefore it was even published, about the aftermath ofpresidential election in Iran in June 2009.

    Amir is a journalist, activist, and documentary

    filmmaker based in California. He was born in Iran,but had to leave with his family at the age of 12 following the 1979 revolution. Hiscareer as a journalist and activist has been largely focused on human rights in Iran.

    Khalil was born in Paris and has been a political cartoonist and fine artist inCalifornia since the age of 20. His work has been distributed in hundreds ofnewspapers in the United States, Canada, and Australia and reprinted worldwide.Zahras Paradise is his first graphic novel.

    Host: zge CalafatoArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: Discussion Sofa

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    20:00 21:00

    Poetry ReadingAhmad Yamani and Adel Khozam

    Ahmad Yamani is an Egyptian poet and translator,born in Cairo in 1970. He holds a diploma in graduatestudies from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid,where he is currently working on his Ph.D. Mr. Yamanihas been publishing his poems since 1989 and haspublished four books of poetry so far: Amaken khatia(Wrong Places, 2008), Wardat fil-ras (Roses in the

    Head, 2001), Taht shagarat al-aila (Under the Family Tree, 1998), and Shawariaal-abyad wal-aswad (Black and White Streets, 1995). He lives in Madrid, Spain.

    Adel Khozam is an Emirati poet and writer. He haspublished three books of poetry, and two books on

    theatre and the fine arts in the UAE. He has beenworking in the media since the 1990s, and hascomposed musical scores for the theatre and TV. Hewon first prize at the Childrens Theatre Festival inSharjah.

    Arabic l Venue: The Tent

    21:00 22:00

    Open MicTake the stage!

    A unique opportunity for members of the public to display their performing talent:we invite you to pick up the microphone and recite a text of your choicealllanguages are welcome. Thank you for sharing your love of words!

    Venue: The Tent

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    1 AprilSunday

    11:00 12:00

    Nabiha MheidlyBook-signing

    Nabiha Mheidly is a childrens book author and theowner of Dar al-Hadaeq publishing house, a housespecializing in childrens books and magazines. Ms.Mheidly is also a lecturer in childrens journalism andliterature. She is the author of fifty books for readers

    ages 27 and 712, and she has received numerous prizes, among them theArabic Journalism Award in Dubai. Her latest book was published in 2011.

    Host: Walid AlaeddineArabic l Venue: Signatures Corner

    11:00 12:00

    Once upon a Time...On the importance of fairytales in helping

    children understand their world and its history

    A discussion inspired by Kalimas publication of the Collection of Storiesfrom Around the World, compiled by the Diplomatic Group for the Spouses ofAmbassadors UAE.Speakers: Dr. Maha Radwan, project coordinator, with the Director of the Al AinCare & Rehabilitation Centre and Ahmad Tay, storyteller.

    Arabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    12:00 13:00

    The Art of IllustrationA conversation with Delphine Jacquot

    Delphine Jacquot is a French illustrator, born in 1982.She was trained as a draughtsman and designerbefore studying communication at the School of theBeaux-Arts in Rennes. She then turned to childrensbook illustration and graduated from the Beaux-Arts

    academy in Brussels, Belgium. She was among seven illustrators who contributedpictures for a book about the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque of Abu Dhabi in 2010.Two of her books have been translated into Arabic by Kalima: Le Cavalier Bleu andIbou Min et les Tortues de Bolilanga.

    Host: Charlotte ChedevilleArabic-English-French l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: The Tent

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    12:30 13:15

    KITAB Reading Competition 2012Final round

    Fifth graders from Al Ain and Abu Dhabi compete for the title of Read-AloudChampion. Our winner from last year will join a panel of judges to help pick awinner from among eight finalists. Come and be entertained by listening to awonderful story, translated by Kalima, and support these young readers.

    Arabic l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    13:30 14:30

    Lets Be Poets!Poetry workshop with Bahareh Amidi

    An invitation to our public! Come take part in aninteractive session where you will be encouraged tocompose your own poetical interpretation of a themethat will be chosen by all participants, under theguidance of the poetess Bahareh Amadi.

    Bahareh Amidi is an American-Iranian spiritual poet. She grew up in the UnitedStates, traveled around the world, and currently lives in Abu Dhabi. She studiedphilosophy at Menlo College in California and holds a doctorate in EducationalPsychology from Catholic University in Washington, D.C.. Bahareh has workedwith the elderly, children, and victims of gender abuse, as well as in suicideprevention and drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers. Among her mentors, shecounts John Fox, Certified Poetry Therapist and author of Poetic Medicine: TheHealing Art of Poem-Making. Bahareh has written over forty poetry journals inEnglish and Persian, on themes including human rights, gender empowerment,global peace, interfaith harmony, overcoming trauma, and protecting theenvironment. Her work has often been compared to classical spiritual masterslike Rumi and contemporary writers like Khalil Gibran.

    English l Venue: The Tent

    14:00 15:00

    Meet the Winners of the Sheikh Zayed Book Awardfor Literature and Childrens Literature

    Host: Dr. Khalil Al Sheikh

    Brought to you by the Sheikh Zayed Book Award l Arabic-English l Venue:Discussion Sofa

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    15:00 16:00

    Amin ZaouiBook-signing

    Amin Zaoui, born in 1956 in Bab El Assa, Algeria, isa writer and bilingual scholar in Arabic and French.He was in charge of the National Library in Algiers forsix years, and is currently a member of the board ofdirectors of the Fonds Arabe pour la Culture et les Art.

    He has taught languages and translation at the Universit dOran, and publishedmany essays and fifteen novels, including Banquet of Lies (2007) and Hady al-tuyus (2011).

    Host: Walid AlaeddineArabic l Venue: Signatures Corner

    15:00 16:00

    Writing about the Desert

    Taking as a point of departure the imperative of Michael Ondaatjes The EnglishPatient to write tales of desert exploration outside official history, NYUAD studentshave produced stories that speak of the traveling culture from below before andduring World War IIfrom the perspective of tribesmen, secretaries, and the erasoverlooked female and Arab explorers.

    Brought to you by New York University Abu Dhabi l English l Venue: The Tent

    16:15 17:15

    Presenting the Book Naguib Mahfouz: Man of Cinema

    Published in English and Arabic by the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, this bookinvestigates the unique relationship that Naguib Mahfouz, the man and the writer,had with cinemaone of the many elements of his creative world. It addressesMahfouzs contribution to Arab cinema as a novelist and scriptwriter, presents acomparative study of his work that was adapted into Mexican cinema, and offerscritical reviews of the films of Salah Abu Seif and Hassan Al Imam, who weredeeply inspired by Mahfouz.

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    Speaker:

    Mohamed Salmawy is president of the EgyptianWriters Union, editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo, anda columnist at Al-Ahram. He is one of Egypts mostprolific writers, being a playwright, novelist, columnist,

    critic, and political commentator. Mr. Salmawy has heldseveral official posts, including that of Undersecretaryof State for Foreign Cultural Relations at the Egyptian

    Ministry of Culture (198889). He taught English language and literature at CairoUniversity (196677), before becoming foreign editor of Al-Ahram newspaper(197988). Many of his titles have been translated into other languages, includinghis two plays The Chains and The Last Dance of Salom.Brought to you by the Abu Dhabi Film Festival l Arabic-English l Venue: DiscussionSofa

    Host: Philip Kennedy

    Mr. Salmawywill sign his books at the Signatures Corner on Monday, 2 April from18:3019:30.

    17:00 18:00

    The Playwrights CornerJonas Hassen Khemiri and Wajahat Ali

    Jonas Hassen Khemiri, born in Sweden in 1978,is the author of two novels and one collection ofplays and short stories. His first novel, One Eye Red,received the Boras Tidning award for best literary

    debut.His second novel, Montecore, won several literary awards including the SwedishRadio Award for best novel of the year. Khemiri has also received the PO EnquistLiterary Prize for the most promising young European writer. His first play,Invasion!, was written for the Stockholm City Theatre and has been performedin France, Germany, the UK, and Norway, and was awarded a Village Voice ObieAward in 2011 for best script. Khemiri has also written the plays God Times Fivefor Riksteatern and We Who Are Hundred, which opened at Gothenburg CityTheatre in 2009 and won the Hedda Award, Norways top theatrical award, for thebest play of 2010. He has been named one of the most important Swedish writersof his generation. He currently divides his time between Stockholm and Berlin.

    Wajahat Ali is a playwright, attorney, new media journalist, and humorist. His award-winning play,The Domestic Crusaders, is one of the first majorplays published about Muslim Americans. He hascontributed commentary pieces to the Guardian, TheHuffington Post, Salon, The Washington Post, andother outlets. He is currently writing an HBO pilot with

    writer Dave Eggers about a Muslim American cop. He blogs at Goatmilk.

    Host: Nezar AndaryBrought to you by the Embassy of Sweden l Arabic-English l Followed by a book-

    signing l Venue: The Tent

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    17:30 18:30

    The Arab Gulf behind the StereotypesPresenting a new atlas of the Gulf countries

    Based on the results of a three-year research program, this atlas aims tochallenge many common preconceived ideas about the countries of the ArabGulf. It presents the contemporary realities of the Gulf countries in all of theircomplexity and contradictions, demonstrating that they are not only oil producers,but also stakeholders in globalization. It shows that the cities of the Gulf whichexperienced spectacular oil-related growth are neither without a past nor without

    a post-oil destiny. Anchored in a double heritage both Bedouin and maritime,they anticipate the cities of the future in many aspects. The atlas analyzes theold, changing, and ambiguous relations between the two shores of the Gulf, andexplains to what extent the current dynamics induce spatial reorganization andsocial change. Employing a multi-scale approach, it throws light on the dialecticbetween unity and diversity in the region.

    Speakers:

    Dr. Philippe Cadne is a professor of geography at Paris-Sorbonne UniversityAbu Dhabi and a member of SEDET (Transdisciplinary Studies on DevelopingSocieties), a research center attached to Paris-Diderot University.

    Dr. Brigitte Dumortier is the head of the Department of Geography and Planningat PSUAD and a member of SEDET (Transdisciplinary Studies on DevelopingSocieties), a research center attached to Paris-Diderot University.

    Frank Ttart currently teaches at the Lyce Franais Louis Massignon in AbuDhabi. He holds a doctorate in Geopolitical Science and is an associate professorat the Universit de Genve.

    Brought to you by Paris-Sorbonne University Abou DhabiArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    18:15 19:15

    Meet Sahar El Mougy

    Sahar El Mougy is a storyteller, a gender andcreative writing trainer, an assistant professor in theEnglish Department at Cairo University, and a radiopresenter (she hosts a writing workshop on the Cairo-based English local station Radio Cairo). She startedwriting in 1994 and has published two collections ofshort storiesSayedat al-manam (The Lady of the

    Dream), 1998; and Aliha saghira (Little Gods), 2003as well as two award-winning novels: Daria, 1999, and Noon, 2007. She is also the author of Developingthe Emotional Intelligence in Children, a gender training manual published in 2004.

    Host: Nasser IraqArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: The Tent

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    19:00 20:00

    Fawaz Haddad

    Fawaz Haddad is a Syrian novelist, born in Damascus

    in 1947. He graduated with a degree in law from theSyrian University in 1970. A full-time writer since 1988,he has published ten novels and a collection of shortstories. He has served as a judge for several prizes forthe novel in Syria. In 2009, he was short-listed for the

    International Prize for Arabic Fiction for The Unfaithful Translator, and his mostrecent novel, Gods Soldiers, was long-listed for the 2011 IPAF.

    Arabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    19:30 20:30Between writing and translation

    Maryam Faraj Jouma is an Emirati writer who studiedEnglish Literature at Bagdad University and Linguisticsand Translation in England. She started her career asa teacher and later began working as a journalistictranslator. She has published two collections of shortfiction: Fairouz (1988) and Water (1994). Some of her

    translations have been published in An Exceptional Woman (2003).

    Host: Ali Al ShaaliArabic-English l Venue: The Tent

    20:30 21:30

    Conversation with Rachid Boudjedra

    Rachid Boudjedra is an Algerian poet, novelist,essayist, playwright, and educator, born in An Bedain 1941. He grew up in Constantine and Tunis, and

    took an active part in the Algerian independencemovement. He studied philosophy in Algiers andParis, graduating from the Sorbonne with a doctoral

    dissertation on L.F. Cline. He taught for a while in Algeria, France, and Morocco.Boudjedra is prolific writer, whose first novel, La Rpudiation (The Repudiation),1969, gained notoriety because of its explicit language and frontal assault onMuslim traditionalism in contemporary Algeria. He was hailed as the leader of anew movement of experimental fiction. His latest book, Les Figuiers de Barbarie(Grasset, 2010), was awarded the Prix du Roman Arabe.

    Host: Dr. Maan Al TaieArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: Discussion Sofa

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    10:00 10:45

    Storytelling with Ahmed Tay

    Ahmed Ali Taystarted his career as a storyteller in2007, performing in schools, universities, and publiclibraries. He runs workshops and classes on the artof storytelling and on how to write and discern qualitychildrens books. His has published four childrensbooks himself, including his latest title Who Is Here.

    Arabic l Venue: The TentMr. Tay will sign his books at the Signatures Corner from 11:30 12:30.

    11:00 12:00

    Live Book ClubJennifer Steil in conversation with the members of

    the American Women Network reading group

    Jennifer Steil is an American writer and journalist; hermost recent work includes a long piece on Yemen forthe World Policy Journal, another article on Yemen forDie Welt, and a piece in The Washington Times aboutLondons 911/ memorial. Jennifer started her career asa professional actor (she holds a bachelors degree inTheatre from Oberlin College) but went on to complete

    a masters degree in Creative Writing/Fiction (at Sarah Lawrence College) andanother one at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Since1997, she has worked as a reporter, writer, and editor for newspapers andmagazines in the US and abroad. Her first book, The Woman Who Fell from theSky, was published in 2010 to critical acclaim: it is a memoir of the year sheworked as editor of the Yemen Observer in Sanaa. After spending a total of fouryears in Yemen, she now lives in London with her family and is working on a novel.

    With Tahira YaqoobArabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: The Tent

    11:00 12:00

    Simon Bolivar, Anti-Colonial WritingsLaunching the Arabic translation of Gustavo Pereiras book

    Celebrating the bicentennial of the independence of Venezuela, the VenezuelanEmbassy in the UAE has sponsored the translation into Arabic of the great poetGustavo Pereiras book Simon Bolivar, Anti-Colonial Writings. The universality ofBolivars principles is the best introduction to the political, historical, and social

    2 AprilSunday

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    reality of Latin America. This book will lead Arab readers to delve into Bolivarsthoughts about freedom, and into the reasons underlying the emancipationmovement in Venezuelaa movement still in force today, and not only in LatinAmerica.

    Speakers: Amer Al Qadi (cultural affairs attach); Adnan Qadhem (translator)

    Brought to you by the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela l Arabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    11:30 12:30

    Ahmed TayBook-signing

    Host: Walid AlaeddineArabic l Venue: Signatures Corner

    12:15 13:15

    The Stars in the Palms of Your HandsThe beauty of science books

    Olivier Sauzereau, from France, is a professionalphotographer who specializes in astronomicalphenomena. He has been traveling around the worldfor the past twenty years taking pictures of thoseextraordinary occurrences when our planet and the

    universe create beautiful cosmic landscapes. His original astro-photographicwork shows the astronomical skies as seen from Earth, offering the non-specialist the possibility of discovering the celestial world through a sense ofaesthetics. The images talk also about science: parallel to his activities as anastro-photographer, Olivier Sauzereau has been working since 1984 in the fieldof popular science through conferences, exhibitions, books (most recently Lilde lastronome and LObservatoire, 2009), and TV documentaries. He was thedirector of the collection Les mondes connus et inconnus at Actes Sud Junior,which republished several little-known novels by Jules Verne. He is pursuing adoctorate in Epistemology and the History of Sciences and Techniques.

    Brought to you by Institut Franais UAE l Arabic-English-French l Venue: The Tent

    12:30 13:30

    Short Story Award

    Meet the winners of the competition co-sponsored by the Arts and Life section ofThe National and Abu Dhabi International Book Fair

    With Sahar El MougyArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

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    13:45 14:45

    Outstanding Women of the UAE

    Judith Hornok presents her book Modern ArabWomen: The New Generation of the United ArabEmirates Judith Hornok will engage in an in-depthconversation with some of the inspiring Emiratiwomen featured in her book, who achieved successin the fields of the arts, business, medicine, sport,

    fashion, and politics. Together, they will discuss their principles in life and theboundaries they crossed, and will analyze the image that the West has of Easternwomen and vice versa.Judith Hornok is an Austrian journalist and communication specialist. For the pasteight years she has divided her time between the GCC states and the West. Shemoderates business panels and international discussions on the new generationof Arabs, and has lectured on women in the Arab Gulf at Stanford Universityin the United States (2010). She also presents seminars and workshops on thesubject of cultural understanding between the Arab World and the West forcompanies around the world. In 2010, she took part in the Ethics and Ideals in theInternational Press debate at the Festival of Thinkers in Abu Dhabi; in 2011, she

    participated in the panel The Arab World in the Media at the Munich Media Days.Arabic-English l Followed by a book-signing l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    15:00 16:00

    Meet the Winners of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in theTranslation and Young Author Categories

    Host: Kadhem JihadBrought to you by the Sheikh Zayed Book AwardArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    16:30 17:30

    Samiha KhreisBook-signing

    Samiha Khreis is a Jordanian writer by, author oftwelve short story collections and novels, including:Yahya, al-Qarmiya, The Sunflower, and Nara. Herlatest novel, On the Birds Wing, was published by

    Dar Al Hiwar in 2012. Some of her works have beentranslated into other languages. She was awarded the Prize for Literature from theArab Thought Foundation.

    Host: Walid Alaeddine l Arabic l Venue: Signatures Corner

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    17:00 18:00

    Celebrating the Centenary of mile Durkheims MasterpieceThe sociology of religion today: Durkheims heritage

    In 1912, the founder of French sociology, mile Durkheim, published TheElementary Forms of Religionhis most major work and a landmark in the fieldof the sociology of religion. To commemorate the hundredth anniversary of thispublication, the Department of Philosophy and Sociology at Paris-SorbonneUniversity Abu Dhabi has invited world-renowned specialists to discuss theDurkheimian conception of religion and to show how contemporary sociologycan still fruitfully use Durkheims tools to understand religion today.Speakers:Dr. Marcel Fournier is a professor of sociology at the Universit de Montral(Canada), a specialist in the sociology of science and culture, and the author of anauthoritative biography of mile Durkheim (Fayard, 2007).

    Dr. Sbastien Mosbah-Natanson has been an assistant professor of sociologyat PSUAD (UAE) since 2011. He specialized for his Ph.D. in the history of Frenchsociology, and he currently works on the internationalization of social sciences.He contributed to the UNESCO World Social Science Report 2010.Dr. Yuting Wang has been an assistant professor of sociology at the AmericanUniversity of Sharjah (UAE) since 2009. She specializes in the sociology of religion,and her research focuses on Islam in the United States and religion in China. Sheis also currently studying students values in the UAE.Dr. Vinod K. Jairath is a professor of sociology at the University of Hyderabad(India) and a specialist in the sociology of science and the sociology of culture. Heis currently interested in Muslim communities in Asia.

    Brought to you by Paris-Sorbonne University Abou DhabArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    18:15 19:15

    A Chat with the Sheikh Zayed Book Award Winners in theTechnology and Best Publishing House Categories

    Host: Juergen BoosBrought to you by the Sheikh Zayed Book AwardArabic-English l Venue: Discussion Sofa

    18:30 19:30

    Meet Jonas Hassen Khemiri

    Jonas Hassen Khemiri, born in Stockholm in 1978,is an award-winning Swedish-Tunisian novelist andplaywright. He is the author of two novels and onecollection of plays and short stories. His first novel,One Eye Red, received the Boras Tidning award forbest literary debut. His second novel, Montecore,

    won several literary awards including the Swedish Radio Award for best novelof the year. Khemiri has also received the PO Enquist Literary Prize for the mostpromising young European writer. His first play, Invasion!, was written for theStockholm City Theatre and has been performed in France, Germany, the UK,

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    Monday

    and Norway. Khemiri has also written the plays God Times Five for Riksteaternand We Who Are Hundred, which opened at Gothenburg City Theatre in 2009 andwon the Hedda Award, Norways top theatrical award, for the best play of 2010.He has been named one of the most important Swedish writers of his generation.He currently divides his time between Stockholm and Berlin.Host: zge Calafato

    Brought to you by the Embassy of Sweden l Arabic-EnglishFollowed by a book-signing l Venue: The Tent

    18:30 19:30Mohamed Salmawy

    Book-signing

    Mohamed Salm