Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

The UAE’s annual literary extravaganza, the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature began on Wednesday with a starry mix of Hollywood celebrity, award-winning authors and experts leading the field on matters shaping the world. Across the week-long event, the festival will feature almost 300 sessions, ensuring there’s something for everyone, from live music and poetry performances to workshops, film screenings, and of course inspiring talks from some of the biggest names in literature.

The Festival takes place at the Inter-Continental Dubai Festival City, and across the creek at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library from Feb.1-6, 2023.

Praising Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, tweeted, “today, the Emirates Festival of Literature completes 15 years of creativity, culture and book celebration. We celebrate cultural events in Dubai in particular, because they reflect the depth of the human being in our society.” “Culture is the guide of civilization, and our life is not complete without economic sufficiency, cultural depth, and social cohesion,” he tweeted further.

It will be land on space as well as man with earth from now on via the influence of reading, continually etched in both the young and wise minds.

Thus, from the Wednesday inaugural press conference of the Feb.1 to 6 “Emirates Airline Festival of Literature” (EFL) at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library (MBRL) in Al Jaddaf, Dubai wherein two timely and pertinent “partnerships” were announced in connection with the future, aside from the overview of the literary cultural event which has simultaneous interactive sessions at the Inter-Continental Hotel-Dubai Festival City.

Delighted to host the 15th year of the EFL, the flagship of the non-profit organisation Emirates Literature Foundation (ELF), under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai, was Mohammed Bin Rashid Library Foundation chairman Mohammed Ahmad Al Murr, himself a short story writer and author of “Dubai Tales” and “The Wink of Mona Lisa.”

From the panel, the ELF trustee said he had proposed the MBRL to be a venue but the Novel Coronavirus pandemic delayed it.

Asked from the floor regarding the relevance of the annual global gathering of juvenile and well-loved literary geniuses, amidst the worldwide rise of mental health concerns, ELF chief executive officer/trustee Isobel Abulhoul said: “If you are looking at mental health, reading is one of the ways to really, really help people who are going through traumas. The scientific facts are, when you read or being read to, your heart rate slows (down) and your blood pressure drops. That’s what happens physically to our body.”