United Arab Emirates : The changing face of journalism will be the subject under discussion with Christina Lamb, award winning journalist from The Sunday Times and Emirati political commentator Sultan Al Qassemi on Thursday 2 July 2020 at  19:30 UAE.

The debate is the latest event in the Literary Conversations Across Borders series which uses a digital platform to host Emirati writers and commentators in live discussions with high profile experts from around the world on a variety of critical topics.

The speakers will consider how news reporting has changed in the last ten years, in particular the impact of twitter and the spread of fake news. Christina Lamb has been Foreign Correspondent of the Year five times and recently named Sue Lloyd Roberts Journalist of the Year for ‘outstanding reporting on refugee issues’ for her reports on Boko Haram and the Chibok Girls. Her book, Nujeen, was co-written with inspirational young refugee Nujeen Mustafa and I Am Malala, co-authored with Malala Yousafzai. Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi is an Emirati columnist and researcher on social, political and cultural affairs in the Arab Gulf States. His tweets became a major news source during the Arab Spring, rivalling the major news networks at the time, and in 2018 Sultan ranked 19th on the “Arabic Thought Leader Index” by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute.

The inaugural event of Literary Conversations Across Borders saw more than 3,500 people from 46 countries register and able to tune  in to the live event with Indian politician Shashi Tharoor and His Excellency Zaki Nusseibeh Minister of State: Office of  Public and Cultural Diplomacy, in a debate  on how the events of 2020 will change the course of history.

Other sessions included H.E. Omar Ghobash and journalist Lesley Hazleton as they debated the impact of the pandemic on faith and belief systems, and celebrated environmentalist Dr. Jane Goodall and H. E. Mariam bint Mohammed Al Mheiri Minister of State for Food Security on how the pandemic might influence global food supply challenges and the natural world. 

The ‘Literary Conversations Across Borders’ project is a new initiative to promote international cultural understanding through the power of books and words  launched by the UAE Office of Public and Cultural Diplomacy and the Emirates Literature Foundation.

There will be eight sessions in this first Literary Conversations Across Borders series. Further details and more authors will be announced shortly.

The sessions are free to watch but pre-registration is required at www.elfdubai.org/en/literary-conversations-across-borders 

 After the event the session will be hosted on the Emirates Literature Foundation YouTube channel. Full details on the upcoming programme will be available on the OPCD https://opcd.ae/  and Emirates Literature Foundation https://www.elfdubai.org/  websites.

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For more information, please contact:
Katie Plant
emirateslitfest@fourcommunications.com 

Krishina Gandhi
emirateslitfest@fourcommunications.com 

The session will take place on Thursday 2 July 2020 at UAE 19:30 hours (UK 16:30 hours, New York USA 11:30 hours)

Speakers

Christina Lamb is Chief Foreign Correspondent for the Sunday Times.

She was recently named Sue Lloyd Roberts Journalist of the Year for ‘outstanding reporting on refugee issues’. She also won the Foreign Press Association Award for her report on Boko Haram and the Chibok Girls.

Lamb has been based in Pakistan, Brazil, South Africa and Washington as US editor and been named Foreign Correspondent of the Year five times.

Lamb is the author of the best-selling The Africa HouseWaiting for AllahThe Sewing Circles of HeratSmall Wars Permitting and I Am Malala, co-authored with Malala Yousafzai. Her latest book, Nujeen, is co-written with inspirational young refugee Nujeen Mustafa.

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi is an Emirati columnist and researcher on social, political and cultural affairs in the Arab Gulf States. Sultan’s tweets became a major news source during the Arab Spring, rivaling the major news networks at the time, until TIME magazine listed him in the “140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2011.” In 2018 Sultan ranked 19th on the “Arabic Thought Leader Index” by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute.

Sultan was a practitioner-in-residence at the Hagop Kevorkian Center of Near East Studies at New York University in the Spring of 2017, a 2018 Yale Greenberg World Fellow and a lecturer at the Council of Middle East Studies in Yale University then an Adjunct Instructor at the Center of Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University in 2019.

Sultan is also the founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, an independent initiative established in 2010 to contribute to the intellectual development of the art scene in the Arab region by building a prominent and publicly accessible art collection in the United Arab Emirates. In 2018, 100 works from the collection were hosted on a long-term basis at the Sharjah Art Museum.

Sultan is currently conducting research for a book that documents the modern architecture of the city of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, and teaching a course on “Politics of Modern Middle Eastern Art” at Boston College.

About the Office of Public and Cultural Diplomacy (OPCD)

The Office of Public and Cultural Diplomacy (OPCD) is a coordinating entity that supports the objectives of United Arab Emirates diplomatic missions around the world through arts and culture programming, research and content design. OPCD is dedicated to promoting UAE heritage and values and facilitating cross-cultural dialogue in the service of improved global cooperation and international prosperity.

About the Emirates Literature Foundation:

The Emirates Literature Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation which supports and nurtures a love of literature in the United Arab Emirates and the region, through a programme of varied cultural initiatives.

Established in 2013 by Royal Decree issued by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the Foundation aims to foster a love for literature, with a focus on the Arabic language.

In line with the National Reading Policy of the UAE, the Foundation has implemented several long-term projects including the School Librarian of the Year Award and the annual Arabic Language Week, as well as conducting year-round student education programmes, book clubs and creative writing courses. The Foundation’s previous initiatives included the 2016 Dubai Translation Conference and the 2017 Dubai International Publishing Conference, which hosted a number of international participants.

The Foundation is also the governing body of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, the UAE’s premier literary festival, which will be held 2– 6 February, 2021.

Emirates Literature Foundation
Dar Al Adaab
Al Shindagha Historical Neighbourhood
PO Box 24506
Dubai, UAE
www.elfdubai.org 

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