In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu interviews award-winning novelist and activist Susan Albuhawa about a major literary festival she is organizing entitled Palestine Writes which will take place in Philadelphia from Sept 22 to Sept 24.

Palestine Writes is the only North American literature festival dedicated to celebrating and promoting cultural productions of Palestinian writers and artists. Born from the pervasive marginalization of Palestinian voices in mainstream literary institutions, the festival brings Palestinian cultural workers from all parts of historic Palestine and in exiled diaspora together with peers from other marginalized groups in the United States. Crossing multiple borders dash geographic linguistic and cultural boundaries--writers, artists, publishers, booksellers, scholars, musicians, and thinkers hold conversations about art, literature, and the intersections between culture and power, struggle, politics, climate change, sexuality, human rights, animal rights, food sovereignty, and more.

Albuhawa gives us an inside look at the genesis of the festival, and its motivating ethos and politics.

Susan Albuhawa is a novelist, poet, essayist, scientist, mother, and activist. Her debut novel Mornings in Jenin, translated into 30 languages, was an international bestseller and is considered a classic in Palestinian literature. Its reach and sales has made Albuhawa the most widely-read Palestinian author. Her second novel, The Blue between Sky and Water, was likewise an international bestseller. Against the Loveless World was published in August 2020 by Simon and Schuster to much acclaim. Albuhawa is the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, a children's organization dedicated to uplifting Palestinian children.

SUSAN ALBUHAWA

Palestinians have been facing erasure for decades. There's the physical erasure of our villages, the names of our villages, the erasure of the word Palestine from the map, erasure of our identities. And now there's this kind of colonization of our narratives, of our stories, and our history.

And Palestine Writes is part of a counterforce against this new form of colonization. The Zionist colonial narrative has always shifted with shifting wind, depending on what's in vogue at the time. Initially, it was a sort of romantic ending to Europe's genocide of its own Jewish population. And there was this epic myth of "a land without people for a people without land". And of course that was unsustainable.

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Speaking Out of Place, which carries on the spirit of Palumbo-Liu’s book of the same title, argues against the notion that we are voiceless and powerless, and that we need politicians and pundits and experts to speak for us.

Judith Butler on Speaking Out of Place:

“In this work we see how every critical analysis of homelessness, displacement, internment, violence, and exploitation is countered by emergent and intensifying social movements that move beyond national borders to the ideal of a planetary alliance. As an activist and a scholar, Palumbo-Liu shows us what vigilance means in these times.  This book takes us through the wretched landscape of our world to the ideals of social transformation, calling for a place, the planet, where collective passions can bring about a true and radical democracy.”

David Palumbo-Liu is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He has written widely on issues of literary criticism and theory, culture and society, race, ethnicity and indigeneity, human rights, and environmental justice. His books include The Deliverance of Others: Reading Literature in a Global Age, and Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, Al Jazeera, Jacobin, Truthout, and other venues. Twitter @palumboliu
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