If your children love to read, this year’s Emirates Airline Festival of Literature will be the perfect family outing. With fan favourite children’s authors making up more than 20% of this year’s programme, the Festival is set to offer something for every member of your family. The Festival will take place 3 -13 February 2022, at its new home in the Habtoor City hotels.
Families can celebrate the tenth anniversary of the publication of Gangsta Granny with the ever popular David Walliams. TV chef, author and television presenter, Nadiya Hussain, will also be at the Festival to discuss her stories exploring feelings and confronting fears. Other children’s authors will include, Rob Biddulph of #DrawWithRob, Ben Miller, Sam Copeland, Ben Bailey Smith aka Doc Brown, Sav Akyüz, Ebitsam Al-Beiti, Beverley Jatwani, and Magic Phil.
For your pre-teen and teen book lovers, the award-winning author of the Shapeshifter series Ali Sparkes will attend, with the final book in her most recent fantasy adventure Night Forever. Nayanika Mahtani, Erin Entrada Kelly, Julia Johnson, Maitha Al Khayat, Karine Jaber, Sara Sadik, Layne Redman, Elizabeth Acevedo, and S. K. Ali will also attend.
The Arabic Children’s programme will feature Dubai Abulhoul with her retelling of Emirati folk tales for children, and Hadil Ghoniem, author of Layali Shahrzizi (The Nights of Shahrzizi), the 2020 Etisalat Book of the Year award for Arabic Children’s literature. Other Arabic children’s authors will include Gulnar Hajou, Sanaa Chabbani, Safia Al Shehi, Sahar Naja Mahfouz, Abdulrahman Al Dasuki, and Nour Arab.
The Festival will also host a ‘Children’s Takeover’ where some of Dubai’s youngest authors will read excerpts from their books and share their inspiration. For your budding authors, there will be interactive workshops to get children of all ages involved in creative writing, illustration, and poetry.
To buy tickets and for the full list of authors, visit www.emirateslitfest.com
More information about the Emirates Literature Foundation can be found online and year-round news of #EmiratesLitFest on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. The Foundation also has two podcasts; the Best of the Emirates LitFest, and the Boundless Book Club.