With barbed gates, weapons and checkpoints which block movement and life itself, you will discover that the likelihood of a woman writer becoming a conventional writer and having readers is decreasing day by day. People are always occupied not just with the occupation itself, but also with surviving in order to find their little bit of bread and personal safety. To achieve these impossible goals means consuming energy and time while crossing borders from one city to the next, and from each village to every other, and sometimes even between houses within the same area.

Liana Badr’s conference will provide a first-hand account of what it is like to be a woman writer in Palestine, lacking enough time to do anything more than just survive.

Organized with the cooperation of the UAM Master’s program in Contemporary Arab and Islamic World Studies, the conference will also mark the official opening of the academic year for the Master’s Degree, with attendance by Luz Gómez, a tenured professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the university, who will be introducing the speaker and stimulating the subsequent debate, with moderation by Olivia Orozco, Casa Árabe’s Training and Economics coordinator.

Liana Badr
Liana Badr was born in Jerusalem. She was exiled from Jericho in 1967 and since then has lived in many different countries, including Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Tunisia. With degrees in Philosophy and Psychology awarded by the Arab University of Beirut, she worked for several Palestinian women’s organizations as a volunteer, as a reporter in the field and editor for the cultural section of Al Hurriyya magazine and as Director General of Arts at the Palestinian Ministry of Culture.

A narrator and poet, she is one of the most celebrated and translated Palestinian writers. Founding editor of the cultural magazine Dafater Thaqafiyya, she has authored novels, short stories and children’s stories, as well as being a film director. She has written and directed seven documentary films, which have received numerous international awards. She has been living in Ramallah since 1994.