Shibli blocked from Beirut festival
After flying across the country and arriving in Denver for one big gathering of writers, we just learned the distressing news that Adania Shibli and Ala Hlehel, both Israeli Arab writers, won’t be allowed to travel to Beirut next week to participate in the Beirut39 festival, where their writing is being honored. (They’ll receive their awards in London instead, on April 15.)
This isn’t the first time this has happened to Adania. We’ll post later the wonderful essay she wrote the last time this happened to her —it seems to have been taken off the web. Not to attribute anything sinister.
Now we’ve got a bookfair to attend, where our complaints about sketchy internet connections and smashed cartons of books now seem small.
Tags: Adania Shibli, AWP conference, Beirut 39


May 3rd, 2010 at 10:52 am
[...] but you can find a write-up of one of her events here—a co-event with Ala Hlehel, who as we noted the other week, was the other honoree of the Beirut 39 unable to attend the festival in Beirut. [...]