How does one write about Palestine? Palestinian novelist Adania Shibli will speak with writer Marek Torčík about the possibilities and limits of literary language at a time when freedom of artistic expression is increasingly hindered. Adania Shibli’s novel Minor Detail (2020) became the centre of a controversy and to some extent also a subject of censorship at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2023, when a ceremony to present her with the LiBeraturpreis award was cancelled due to the Israel-Hamas conflict, sparking criticism for silencing Palestinian voices. Over a thousand prominent writers and intellectuals, including Nobel laureates Abdulrazak Gurnah, Annie Ernaux, and Olga Tokarczuk, expressed their support for Shibli. The event will also include the launch of Jitka Jeníková’s Czech translation of the novel, published by Akropolis.

Adania Shibli is an author, essayist, and playwright and one of the most prominent voices in contemporary Palestinian literature. Her novel Minor Detail (2020) was an international phenomenon. Inspired by the true story of the rape and murder of a Palestinian girl by Israeli soldiers in 1949, the novel was nominated for the American National Book Award and the International Booker Prize and has been translated into more than ten languages. Shibli was to be awarded the LiBeraturpreis at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2023; however, after the massacre at the Supernova music festival near Re'im, the organisers cancelled the award ceremony, citing “insensitive timing”. The decision drew widespread criticism from more than fifteen hundred authors and literary organisations. Shibli continues to walk the line between literature and political testimony in her other works. She has written two other novels and a number of plays, and she is also a university professor. She lives between Berlin and Jerusalem.

Marek Torčík is a Czech poet and prose writer of the young generation. He rose to public attention with his debut novel, Rozložíš paměť (Memory burn, 2024), which deals with a queer boy’s coming of age in a small town as well as family history and memory. The book stirred up the debate about the genre of auto-fiction, but above all, it appealed to readers and critics alike with its polished style and sensitivity, earning the author both the Jiří Orten Award and the Magnesia Litera Award for Prose. He most recently published a book Šedá podél cest (2025).