The PalFest Podcast

We marked the publication of Ismail Khalidi’s SELECTED PLAYS with this special live event in New York recorded with the playwright and a selection of his special guests. 

Tune in to hear excerpts from three of Khalidi’s plays, performed by Khalidi himself, Hind Shoufani, John Early, Ahmed Maher, Leta Levy and an introductory talk with Isabella Hammad. 

It was a unique, one off event hosted by Giorno Poetry Systems and co-organized with the Center for Palestine Studies and we’re glad to have been able to capture it and publish it now for you here. 

Thanks to Em from Joseph Joseph Studio Brooklyn for filming.

Find the full video on our YouTube page.
 

This episode was recorded in New York on March 3rd, 2018

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To watch the show, head to our YouTube channel

For more information on the event, visit our website

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Check out the latest PalFest digital publication The Key here

Subscribe to the PalFest Bookshelf here

Find us on our website or our socials:

Insta: @palfest Bluesky: @palfest.bsky.social YouTube: @Palfest

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00:00 - 00:34 - Intro
00:34 - 01:30 - Isabella Hammad; greeting
01:30 - 02:53 - Ismail Kahlidi; introduction
02:53 - 05:05 - Dead are my People; introduction
05:05 - 11:03 - Dead are my People; Act 2, Scene 1
11:03 - 13:32 - Sabra Falling; introduction
13:32 - 26:17 - Sabra Falling; Act 1, Scene 2
26:17 - 28:14 - Final Status; introduction
28:14 - 47:30 - Final Status; Act 1, Scene 3
47:30 - 48:26 - Curtain Call
48:26 - 49:42 - Isabella Hammad; questions intro
49:42 - 82:02 - Isabella Hammad and Ismail Khalidi; questions

In 2015 Molly Crabapple attended the Palestine Festival of Literature in Palestine. When she returned home she began excavating her family’s history and her great-grandfather’s involvement with the Jewish Bund - a secular, socialist, uncompromisingly anti-Zionist revolutionary movement that reached its zenith in inter-war Europe.

Now, eleven years later, she has written HERE WHERE WE LIVE IS OUR COUNTRY, a popular history of the Jewish movement that refused Zionism’s call to colonize and subjugate, and insisted that Here Where We Live Is Our Country.

We sat down with Molly for the PalFest Podcast ahead of its publication.

This episode was recorded in New York on March 18th, 2026.

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Check out the latest PalFest digital publication The Key here

Subscribe to the PalFest Bookshelf here

Find us on our website or our socials:

Insta: @palfest Bluesky: @palfest.bsky.social YouTube: @Palfest

In this episode of the PalFest Podcast we have the writer and political theorist, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, in his first extended conversation since being released from prison in Egypt, with the poet and performer, Farah Barqawi. 

In this wide-ranging conversation the two friends discuss shared memories of Gaza, where Farah’s family is from and where Alaa visited with PalFest in 2012, distance and alienation, personal crises and more. It’s a heartfelt, personal talk between two people who have not seen each other for many years and whose lives are among the millions upended by the ongoing colonial assault on the region.

This episode was recorded between London and New York on March 2nd, 2026.

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Check out the new PalFest online publication The Key here

Subscribe to the PalFest Bookshelf here

Find us on our website or our socials:

Insta: @palfest Bluesky: @palfest.bsky.social YouTube: @Palfest

Episode 11 of the PalFest Podcast: Lina Mounzer, writer, translator and Senior Editor at The Markaz Review in conversation with Jehan Bseiso, poet, translator, aid worker and member of the PalFest organising committee.

In this conversation the two writers discuss the unspeakable versus the unsaid, the emptiness of the word 'ceasefire' and pathways out of cynicism as well as sharing readings of their work and a new Agony Aunt for the Third World column.

This episode was recorded between Beirut and Cairo on February 23rd, 2026.

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Send your questions to Lina's advice column at [email protected]

Palestine and the Unspeakable & A Year Without End from The Markaz Review

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Check out the new PalFest online publication The Key here

Subscribe to the PalFest Bookshelf here

Find us on our website or our socials:

Insta: @palfest Bluesky: @palfest.bsky.social YouTube: @Palfest

Sign up on Patreon for more content in the future

Episode 10 of the PalFest Podcast: in conversation with Mahmoud al-Shaer, editor, curator and poet. 

Mahmoud has long been a key figure in the literary scene in Gaza - a scene that Israel has all but destroyed. He founded a cultural centre in Rafah and the online literary magazine, Magazine 28. He was PalFest's co-producer in Gaza in 2023. 

During the genocide many thousands of people got to know Mahmoud through his writings, the painful chronicle of his family's separation, the brutal ordeal of survival under genocidal siege.

Much of those writings have now been collected into A Year on the Abyss of Genocide (Arp Books).

Mahmoud was finally able to get evacuated from Gaza to Spain, where our hosts Beesan and Waheed talked to him.

 

This episode was recorded between Madrid, Ramallah and London on February 17th, 2026.

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Watch the PalFest poetry event curated and introduced by Mahmoud in 2023 here.

Purchase A Year on the Abyss of Genocide as part of the October/November Bookshelf Bundle here.

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Subscribe to the PalFest Bookshelf here

Find us on our website or our socials:

Insta: @palfest Bluesky: @palfest.bsky.social YouTube: @Palfest

Sign up on Patreon for more content in the future

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Credit to Meqdad.J on Soundcloud for the use of مراجيح | بصوت الشهيدة فاطمة حسونة (Swings - Sung by the Martyr Fatima Hassouna)