Emirates Airline Festival of Literature scoops best festival award

The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature has been named best festival at the Middle East Event Awards for the third consecutive year.

There were many UAE rivals to beat this year, including the Zayed Heritage Festival, Ajyal Youth Film Festival, Sharjah International Book Fair, Dubai Food Carnival and F1’s music festival Yasalam 2014 also nominated in the category.

“We are a small team of dedicated people who all share a passionate desire to bring celebration to reading and inculcate a love of literature across borders, languages and cultures. Our heartfelt thanks must go to the amazing writers who bring the whole event to life in such a magical and exciting way,” Isobel Abulhoul, the festival’s director, said.

The festival, now in its seventh year, is considered to be the region’s largest celebration of the written and spoken word. In March, the event took place at the InterContinental Hotel in Dubai Festival City with more than 37,000 people in attendance for over 200 talks, debates and workshops held by 130-plus authors from around the world including British comedian and children’s author David Walliams.

Other authors at this year’s event included children’s author Michael Morpurgo, poet Imtiaz Dharker and famed Egyptian writer Nawal El-Saadawi.