China Miéville

Susan Abulhawa

Henning Mankell

Chinua Achebe

Geoff Dyer

Michael Ondaatje

Linda Spalding

Adam Foulds

Pankaj Mishra

Claire Messud

Kamila Shamsie

Teju Cole

Deborah Moggach

Michael Palin

J.M. Coetzee

Raja Shehadeh

Rachel Holmes

Sabrina Mahfouz

William Sutcliffe

Mohammed Hanif

Molly Crabapple

Alice Walker

Mahmoud Darwish

Ed Pavlic

Gillian Slovo

Ru Freeman

Najwan Darwish

Jeremy Harding

Yasmin El-Rifae

Suheir Hammad

Mercedes Kemp

John Horner

Suad Amiry

Bridget Keenan

Jehan Bseiso

Atef Abu Saif

Omar El-Khairy

Selma Dabbagh

Remi Kanazi

Muiz,

Ghada Karmi

Maath Musleh

Nancy Kricorian

Nathalie Handal

Victoria Brittain

Jamal Mahjoub

Writers from Alice Walker to Michael Ondaatje to Claire Messud share their thoughts on one of the most vital gatherings of writers and readers in the world. The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008 by authors Ahdaf Soueif, Brigid Keenan, Victoria Brittain and Omar Robert Hamilton. Bringing writers to Palestine from all corners of the globe, it aimed to break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, "the power of culture over the culture of power." Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems, and sketches from some of the world's most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and hope in the most desperate of situations. Contributing authors include J. M. Coetzee, China Miéville, Alice Walker, Geoff Dyer, Claire Messud, Henning Mankell, Michael Ondaatje, Kamila Shamsie, Michael Palin, Deborah Moggach, Mohammed Hanif, Gillian Slovo, Adam Foulds, Susan Abulhawa, Ahdaf Soueif, Jeremy Harding, Brigid Keenan, Rachel Holmes, Suad Amiry, Gary Younge, Jamal Mahjoub, Molly Crabapple, Najwan Darwish, Nathalie Handal, Omar Robert Hamilton, Pankaj Mishra, Raja Shehadeh, Selma Dabbagh, William Sutcliffe, Atef Abu Saif, Yasmin El-Rifae, Sabrina Mahfouz, Alaa Abd El Fattah, Mercedes Kemp, Ru Freeman.

Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature

This Is Not A Border

Moazzam Begg

Presents the experiences of Begg, a British citizen of Pakistani descent, focusing on his life from 2002, when he was taken by the CIA from his home in Islamabad, through his subsequent two-year imprisonment in Guantâanamo, to his release in 2005.

My Imprisonment at Guantánamo, Bagram, and Kandahar

Enemy Combatant

Shadow Lives reveals the unseen side of the "9/11 wars": their impact on the wives and families of men incarcerated in Guantanamo, or in prison or under house arrest in Britain and the US. Victoria Brittain shows how these families have been made socially invisible and a convenient scapegoat for the state in order to exercise arbitrary powers under the cover of the "War on Terror."A disturbing expose of the perilous state of freedom and democracy in our society, the book reveals how a culture of intolerance and cruelty have left individuals at the mercy of the security services' unverifiable accusations and punitive punishments.Both a "j'accuse" and a testament to the strength and humanity of the families, Shadow Lives shows the methods of incarceration and social control being used by the British state and gives a voice to the families whose lives have been turned upside down. In doing so it raises urgent questions about civil liberties which no one can afford to ignore.

The Forgotten Women of the War on Terror

Shadow Lives

When Enemy Combatant was first published in the United States in hardcover in 2006 it garnered sensational reviews, and its author was featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, on National Public Radio, and on ABC News. A second generation British Muslim, Begg had been held by the U.S. military for more than three years before being released without charge in January of 2005. His memoir is the first published account by a Guantánamo detainee of life inside the infamous prison. Writing in the Washington Post Book World, Jane Mayer described Enemy Combatant as “fascinating . . . Begg provides some ideological counterweight to the one–sided spin coming from the U.S. government. He writes passionately and personally, stripping readers of the comforting lie that somehow the detainees aren’t really like us, with emotional attachments, intellectual interests and fully developed humanity.” Recommended by the Financial Times and Tikkun magazine and a ColorLines Editors’ Pick of Post–9/11 Books, Enemy Combatant is “a forcefully told, up-to-the-minute political story . . . necessary reading for people on all sides of the issue” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar

'Honor Bound to Defend Freedom'

Guantanamo

Richard Norton-Taylor

Nicolas Kent

From 1994-2012 Kilburn’s Tricycle Theatre produced an extraordinary body of work that sought to engage, inform,and critique British and International Politics using verbatim testimony to respond to contemporary issues. Collected here for the first time are the complete ‘Tribunal Plays’. 2014 marks the 20th anniversary of the Tricycle’ sfirst Tribunal Play – Half the Picture. This collection celebrates a remarkable and enduring body of work. Contains the plays Half the Picture, Nuremberg, Srebrenica, The Colour of Justice, Justifying War, Guantanamo, Bloody Sunday, Called to Account, Tactical Questioning and The Riots. Also included is a brand-new round table discussion with Nicolas Kent, Richard Norton-Taylor, Gillian Slovo and the playwright David Edgar, charting the history and development of each show and the contribution the Tribunal Plays have made to political theatre in the last two decades, and a foreword by Guardian journalist and chief theatre critic Michael Billington.

Collected Tribunal Plays 1994-2012

The Tricycle

Moazzam Begg is an ordinary man who has endured an extraordinary fate -- imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit and whose precise nature has never been determined. As far as the US government was concerned, it was enough to label him an 'enemy combatant'. Moazzam was arrested in Pakistan, where he was helping set up education programmes for children, in the panic-stricken months after the 9/11 attacks. He spent three years in prison, much of it in solitary confinement, and was subjected to over three hundred interrogations, death threats and torture, witnessing the killings of two detainees. He was released early in 2005 without explanation or apology. ENEMY COMBATANT is his riveting story. Not just an instant classic of incarceration literature, it reveals for the first time what it means to be an intelligent, engaged Muslim living in the West after 9/11, by someone who has recently emerged as an influential voice in the Muslim community, against both acts of terrorism and the demonising of Islam.

A British Muslim's Journey to Guantánamo and Back

This book covers Mai Masri’s three decades documenting iconic moments of Palestinian and Lebanese linked history. Her films, unique for giving agency to her subjects, tell much about the untold, unseen people, namely women and children, who lived these experiences of war and occupation. Former Lebanese political prisoner Soha Bechara praised her feature film 3000 Nights as “the ‘Lest we forget’ of Palestine." Her focus on the social and political climates of the vivid lives of unseen people connects to the deepening violence in Palestine today.

Love and Resistance in the Films of Mai Masri

"I don't know what crime I am supposed to have committed for which not only I but my wife and children should continually suffer." - British detainee Moazzam Begg This verbatim play, drawn from letters and interviews from Guantanamo Bay prisoners, their lawyers and relatives, weaves together personal stories, legal opinion and political debate. Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom looks at the questions surrounding the detentions in Guantanamo Bay, and asks how much damage is being done to Western democratic values during the 'war on terror'. Orignally produced at London's Tricycle Theatre, Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom subsequently transferred to London's West End.

Honor Bound to Defend Freedom'

Victoria Brittain

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