Uppsala International Literary Festival

Since 2022, the research program has collaborated with Uppsala International Literary Festival.

20 - 23 March 2024

This year the focus is on highlighting the voices of the dominated. The festival will feature talks and readings by writers from conflict zones where free speech is under threat, with a special focus on the Arabic-language novel - written in a world language but rarely seen on our bookshelves in Sweden.

An Israeli Patriot’s Perspective on the Destiny of Palestinians

On Thursday 21 March, the program co-hosted a conversation with the award-winning Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, columnist and editorial board member of Haaretz newspaper. In 2010, his book The Punishment of Gaza: Reports from a Catastrophe was published by Verso Publishing House. In 2015, Levy was awarded the Palme Prize for his journalism together with Palestinian cleric Mitri Raheb ‘for their courageous and tireless struggle against violence and occupation and for a future Middle East characterised by peaceful coexistence and equal civil rights for all.’
Today, he is one of the most important critics of Israel's warfare in Gaza and continues to work tirelessly to expose the suffering of Palestinians.

The conversation was lead by artistic director Kholod Saghir and Mikael Olsson Al Safandi.

See the video recording from the event.

Kholod Saghir, Gideon Levy och Mikael Olsson Al Safandi

From left: Kholod Saghir, Gideon Levy, Mikael Olsson Al Safandi

21 March 2024 - Listen to Kalam Podcast, hosted by Edgar Mannheimer, journalist

Nakba (Part two) with Gideon Levy

20 February 2024 - Interview with Christina Kullberg, project manager, Democracy and Higher Education "A discussion that will move people and shake things up"

Uppsala International Literary Festival March 2023

Focus of the 2023 Literary Festival is the question of how war and crime are depicted in literature and how literature can be seen as a place for reconciliation and problematisation of abuses by individuals, institutions and states.

The programme opened the festival at Uppsala City Theatre, where Christina Kullberg, Professor of French Literature at Uppsala University and project manager of Democracy and Higher Education, gave an introductory on the role of literature in democratisation, followed by discussions on how neo-Soviet myths and narratives underpin Russian imperialism.

The program also co-organised a discussion on the State Institute for Racial Biology. Ola Larsmo, currently working on his book Lesson 11, and the poet Burcu Sahin, who recently published Blood Book, talked with the historian of ideas Sven Widmalm, Uppsala University.