October World Picks from the Editors

Banned Books Week 2025: “Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights.”

Oct. 5 – Oct. 11, worldwide, more info

This annual event celebrates the freedom to read, spotlights challenged books, and advocates for open access to information across the book community. According to PEN as of October 1, 2025, “Our latest report on the crisis of book bans documents nearly 23,000 instances of book removals since 2021 and sheds light on a disturbing normalization of censorship in public schools. Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country.”

Sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA), Banned Books Week is primarily an American event with a message that resonates with readers and libraries worldwide. The goal of the week is to encourage everyone to take action against censorship, whether by reading a banned book, raising awareness, or helping to defend the right to read freely. Take a look at AUC Press’s compilation of banned Arabic books over the years here.

Oct. 7, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, US — more info

Moroccan author, poet, and cultural journalist, Yassin Adnan, and translator, Alexander Elinson, read from and discuss Adnan’s first novel, Hot Maroc (Syracuse University Press, 2019), a dark comedy, which was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2017. Hot Maroc is a vital portrait of the challenges Moroccans, young and old, face today in Morocco, where press freedoms are tightly controlled by government authorities, where the police spy on, intimidate, and detain citizens with impunity, and where adherence to traditional cultural icons both anchors and stifles creative production.

DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival 2025

Oct. 9 – 12, various locations, DC, US — more info

As the unrelenting genocide in Gaza approaches its second year, DC’s Palestinian Film and Arts Festival program uncovers the layers of disruption that shape the experiences and threaten the livelihoods of Palestinians in Occupied Palestine and those in the diaspora witnessing it. The festival opens with a live performance from Fargo Nissim Tbakhi, followed by three days of award-winning films, discussions with artists, an interactive culinary workshop, and an engaging children’s program. Full program here.

A Night of Contemporary Sudanese Music: Alsarah & The Nubatones

Oct 10, Bishopsgate Institute, London, UK — more info

Alsarah & The Nubatones is an East-African Retro-Pop music group led by Alsarah, a singer, songwriter, and bandleader originally from Sudan. Their music draws inspiration from Nubian “songs of return,” reflecting modern migration trends and the rich cultural exchange between Sudan and Egypt. The band is on a mission to reinvent Sudanese music for a new generation by blending melodies and narratives that explore themes of migration and memory.

What It Means to Belong: Dalia Al-Dujaili and SJ Kim in conversation with Sana Goyal

Oct. 11, part of Birmingham Literature Festival, UK — more info

Al-Dujaili’s book, Babylon, Albion (Saqi, 2025), intricately weaves together Arab and Islamic mythology with English pastoral themes, celebrating the essences of both Britain and Iraq while reimagining the concept of being native. In contrast, Kim’s This Part is Silent (And Other Stories, 2025) reflects on her experiences within British academia, tackling issues of immigration and rising racism through a series of poignant letters addressed to various institutions and cities. This intimate dialogue offers profound insights into the identities of both writers as they navigate their roles as authors and scholars.

CinemaNA: Happy Holidays by Palestinian Filmmaker Scandar Copti

Oct. 14, The Arts Center, NYU-AD, UAE — more info

Oscar-nominated Palestinian filmmaker and visual artist, Scandar Copti, will be in attendance during the screening of his film Happy Holidays in the Blue Hall at NYU-AD in the UAE. Happy Holidays (2024), Copti’s second feature film, premiered at the 81^st  Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Orizzonti Award for Best Screenplay. The film also received the Étoile d’Or at the Marrakech International Film Festival and the Golden Alexander at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Set against the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this sweeping family drama, written and directed by Copti, explores how personal journeys, difficult decisions, and societal pressures can put cherished relationships—both long-established and newly formed—to the test.

Film Screening: A Thousand and One Berber Nights

Oct. 16, Middle East Institute Art Gallery, DC, US — more info

The 54-minute documentary A Thousand and One Berber Nights (2023) explores the life and legacy of Moroccan dancer Hassan Ouakrim and his role in introducing Berber dance to America as the protege of New York’s La Mama Theatre founder, Ellen Stewart. Ouakrim passed away in July 2025 in New York City and left his mark as one of Morocco’s most influential cultural ambassadors of Amazigh culture and heritage in the United States. The film screening will be preceded by a reception and a gallery tour of the MEI Art Gallery’s new exhibition Arab Pop Art: Between East and West and the screening will be followed by an in-person Q&A with the film’s director, Hisham Aidi.

Ongoing- Oct. 18, V&A South Kensington, London — more info

Artist Ramzi Mallat presents “Not Your Martyr,” a striking installation resembling vibrant glass ma’amoul, the traditional Lebanese shortbread pastries typically enjoyed during Easter and Eid. In a landscape where official narratives are often fragmented and debated, Mallat refers to his creation as a “counter-monument,” reflecting both the impact of the 2020 Beirut explosion and the turmoil of the Lebanese Civil War marking its 50^th anniversary this year. This installation is featured alongside a collaborative work by Lebanese artists Rana Haddad and Pascal Hachem, titled “Debris of Text and Eyeglasses.”

What Remains: solo exhibition by Adel Abidin

Ongoing — Oct. 23, Galerie Tanit, Beirut, Lebanon — more info

Adel Abidin, a Helsinki-based artist originally from Baghdad and born in 1973, is celebrated for his incisive and ironic examinations of history, identity, politics, and cultural alienation. In his return to painting, he delves into how trauma marks landscapes, memories, and the collective psyche. Drawing from his experiences as a diaspora artist navigating multiple cultures, Abidin turns the state of dislocation into a broader reflection on survival and renewal.

Oct. 31-Nov. 1, AUC Tahrir Campus and Zoom — more info

Over the course of two days, Cities on the Edge will gather an international group of scholars working on a variety of aspects pertaining to the urban heritage of Egypt, Sudan, and Palestine. This transnational focus of Egypt and its neighbors serves to acknowledge the deep historical entanglements of these regions from as far back as the neolithic period as well as the related crises they face through serious threats to — and destruction of — their heritage, including the forced relocation of many archaeologists and cultural heritage professionals from Sudan and Palestine to Egypt. The program includes five thematic roundtables as well as a field trip to Islamic Cairo and a special screening of the 2018 documentary The Apollo of Gaza. You can find the program here.