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Dubai International Poetry Festival Begins Today
DUBAI - More than 100 poets from 45 countries will participate in the Dubai International Poetry Festival 2009 that begins today.
His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, will attend the opening ceremony of the seven-day festival, themed ‘A Thousand Poets – One Language’.
Launched by Shaikh Mohammed in July last year, the event is aimed to create a lively platform for humanitarian and intellectual exchange using poetry as a common language.
The festival, which ends on March 10, will witness the launch of the Dubai House of Poetry, reaffirming the emirate’s status as a centre for nurturing literary talent.
Jamal Khalfan bin Huwaireb, prominent UAE poet and chairman of the organising committee, said the festival, being organised by the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, is the first of its kind in the region in terms of its rich content, size and scope of worldwide participation.
“The festival’s theme reflects the universal nature of poetry as a bridge between cultures, fostering global unity through poetic expression regardless of nationality, beliefs, status, or economic circumstances,” he said.
The event features poetry soirees, seminars, workshops, forums, short dramas and live performances.
Bin Huwaireb said though poems will be recited in different languages, the public will be able to follow their Arabic and English translations on big screens so that the spirit of the poems will be communicated to all delegates and the public. Ali Saif Al Shaali, CEO of the festival, said special focus will be given to Arabic ‘Nabati’ poetry, one of the traditional literary forms still prevalent in Gulf states.
An evening of tribute to one of the Arab world’s greatest poets, late Mahmoud Darwish, whose works gave voice to the Palestinian experience of exile, occupation and struggle, will be held during the festival.
Besides, there will be a ‘Souk Ukadh’ that will recreate the halcyon days of Arab creative expression. A number of shopping malls in Dubai including Dubai Mall, Dubai Festival City and Madinat Jumeirah will host various events to reach out to a large number of poetry lovers during the festival.
The literary figures expected to attend the festival include Nigerian playwright and poet Wole Soyinka who won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature; Dr Mana bin Saeed Al-Otaiba and Saif Al-Marri from the UAE; Abdul Rahman Al-Ashmawi from Saudi Arabia; Saad Aloosh and Hamed Zaid from Kuwait; Adonis from Syria; Ahmad Hijazi and Abdul Rahman Al-Abnoudi from Egypt. Scholars such as Breyten Breytenbach from South Africa, James Fenton from the UK, Joachim Sartorius from Germany and Fernardo Rendón from Colombia are also expected to participate.
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