November World Picks from the Editors

Nov 1, Southbank Centre, London — more info

Presented in partnership with the Palestine Festival of Literature, authors Isabella Hammad (The Parisian) and Mirza Waheed (The Collaborator) come together for a discussion about Palestine, Kashmir, and the parallels and divergences in their modern struggles with colonialism. They will discuss art and consciousness around the dual ruptures of 1948, reportage and narration of historical insurgency, and their own roles as artists working from within the imperial core.

Nov 2, Worldwide, several venues — more info

On November 2, on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Filmlab Palestine is organizing over 500 Palestinian film screenings around the world. This global effort is a show of solidarity with Palestine, an act of amplification for censored Palestinian voices, and a contribution to shifting the distorted narrative. Click here for a list of all participating countries this year.

Nov 4, Theatre Royal Plymouth, UK — more info

Like so many of us, writer Sondos Sabra and poet-translator Batool Abu Akleen have observed two years of genocide that has taken at least 63,000 Gazan lives, forced nearly 2 million from their homes, and left vast stretches of the Strip in ruins, from hospitals and universities to arts centers. Alongside reading from their contributions in the book Voices of Resistance, co-authored by Sondos Sabra, Batool Abu Akleen, Nahil Mohana, and Ala’a Obaid (Comma Press, 2025), the event features a moving video by Gazan filmmaker Hossam Abo Shamallah and concludes with a Q&A session with local Palestinians, academics, and activists.

Book Talk: Transformative Feminist Mobilization

Nov 4, Asfari Institute, AUB, Lebanon — more info

Co-authors Lina Abou-Habib, Director, Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship (AUB), and Dr. Tania Haddad, Associate Professor of Public Administration and Interim Chair of the Political Science and Public Administration Department (AUB), will be engaging in a discussion of their book Transformative Feminist Mobilization in the Arab Region (Routledge, 2025). The book addresses a gap in knowledge production on how civic engagement and social mobilization can promote accountable governance in fragile and transition contexts.

Nov 6, Ibraaz, London, UK — more info

Palestine is everywhere, co-published by TBA21 and Silver Press, comprises contributions by writers, thinkers, and poets that map the global resonances, and the actuality of the Palestinian struggle for liberation. The book aims to provide time and space for sustained reflections on resistance, solidarity, and the right to self-determination at this particular world-historical conjuncture marked by unknowability and loss. Weaving together theoretical insight and lived experience, Palestine is everywhere includes vital dispatches from contributors in Gaza, as well as academic essays, poems, protest chronicles, and letters from prison. The event will include a reading by the poet Mira Mattar and a conversation between Laleh Khalili and Rahul Rao on the logistics of insurgency, and the proximity of the university and the military industrial complex.

In the Footsteps of Sindbad

Nov 8, Institut de Monde Arabe, Paris, France — more info

The library at the Institut de Monde Arabe will offer an artistic evening based on the book Oman: In the Footsteps of Sinbad the Sailor (Akinomé, 2025). Author-illustrator Barroux and co-author Lionel Rabin will share their journey to the Sultanate of Oman. The program includes live painting by Barroux, inspired by his sketches, and stories by Lionel Rabin, accompanied by Qaïs Saadi on the oud.

Book Launch: Palestine -1: Stories from the Eve of the Nakba

Nov. 9, Edinburgh, UK — more info

This event, part of Edinburgh’s Radical Book Fair 2025: Ecosystems of Change, will feature Basma Ghalayini, editor of Palestine – 1 (Comma Press, 2026), and writer Mazen Maarouf, to discuss their contributions to the book. Palestine – 1 is a daring response to the events of the last two years, and the ongoing genocide taking place in Gaza, with an unexpected approach to the event that underpins the entire Middle East conflict: the Nakba of 1948. This anthology asks 10 Palestinian writers, all of whose grandparents were forcibly displaced by the events of 1948, to re-imagine Palestine the year before this catastrophe, and to explore the events leading up to it, on a village-by-village basis.

ADIRA Drag Festival 2.0: Queer Arab Futurism

Nov 12 – 14, Berlin, Germany — more info

ADIRA Drag Festival returns for a second edition with a three-day program of workshops, performances, and DJ sets featuring artists from New York, Tunis, Copenhagen, Brussels, Beirut, and Berlin. ADIRA Drag Festival 2.0 explores queer Arab futures through speculative visions of erased histories, reclaimed mythologies, and radical fantasies.

The National Creative Writing Industry Day 2025 for Emerging Writers

Nov 16, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK — more info

Organized by Comma Press, The National Creative Writing Industry Day 2025 is a full day of events for aspiring writers in the North of England to gain insight into the publishing industry and advice on how to excel in their practice.

In Conversation: Joe Sacco and Anthony Loyd

Nov 17, FrontLine Club, London — more info

Joe Sacco — widely regarded as a pioneer of graphic journalism — joins veteran war correspondent Anthony Loyd for a conversation about the politics of storytelling, the ethics of bearing witness, and the power of comics to confront uncomfortable truths. Sacco has chronicled the urgent histories that define the world around us, from the Great War to Gaza. The award-winning cartoonist now turns his visual reportage into an investigation of the deadly sectarian riots in 2013 Uttar Pradesh, in India, highlighting their implications and resonance worldwide.

Maqam Al-Ghazal: The Musical Mode of Love Poetry

Nov 22, MARSM, London, UK — more info

As part of the EFG London Jazz Festival (14 – 23 Nov.), Ghalia Benali and her Belgian troupe of musicians invite audiences to a performance in which East meets West, and “poetry finds its sound.” Banali’s latest project, Maqam Al-Ghazal, combines contemporary compositions inspired by poets from across the Arab world and Belgium, in which she “weaves together the exuberance of baroque, the freedom of jazz, the intensity of rock, and the mystery of Arab maqams.”

Mamluks: Legacy of an Empire

Ongoing — January 2026, Louvre Abu Dhabi, UAE — more info

Developed in collaboration with Musée du Louvre, the Mamluks Exhibition uncovers the story of one of the Islamic world’s most influential dynasties. Showcasing over 250 works, including calligraphy, arabesque designs, textiles, metalwork, ceramics, and manuscripts, the exhibition celebrates the enduring legacy and artistic brilliance of the Mamluk era.

Exhibition: FIRE

Ongoing — March 2026, Brussels, Belgium — more info

Curated by Louma Salamé, the Boghossian Foundation showcases Fire, an exhibition uniting around 50 modern and contemporary artists from diverse backgrounds who investigate the theme of fire. Using sculpture, painting, installation, photography, video, and tapestry, the works examine fire’s many facets — flame, candlelight, electricity, smoke — and its symbolic, physical, and sensory power, from hearth to ashes and sparks to inferno.