Mahmoud Muna in Conversation
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Venue: Upper Hall
In partnership with English PEN
Any profits will go to the Educational Bookshop, Jerusalem, Palestine.
On 9 February 2025, Israeli police raided the leading Palestinian-owned Educational Bookshop in occupied East Jerusalem. They confiscated over 250 books and detained two of its owners, Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna, who were charged with ‘violating public order’ – a claim that has been widely condemned by rights groups around the world as an attack on free expression.
Following his release and five days under house arrest, Mahmoud Muna will appear in London in conversation with journalist Olivia Snaije, at the Union Chapel, in partnership with the literature and human rights organisation English PEN. He will discuss his work, including Daybreak in Gaza, published by Saqi Books, which he co-edited with Matthew Teller; his detention and the raid on the Educational Bookshop; and wider issues related to bookselling, literature, and freedom of expression in Palestine.
Mahmoud Muna is a writer, publisher and bookseller from Jerusalem, Palestine. He runs Jerusalem’s celebrated Educational Bookshop and the Bookshop at the American Colony Hotel, both centres of the city’s literary scene. Muna has degrees in Media and Communication from the University of Sussex and King’s College London. He is active in many cultural initiatives across Palestine and writes regularly on culture and politics, with bylines in the London Review of Books and Jerusalem Quarterly, among others. He recently published the first-ever Arabic edition of the literary magazine Granta and is the co-editor of Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture, published by Saqi Books.
Olivia Snaije is a journalist and editor based in Paris. She writes for New Lines magazine, ArabLit, and The Africa Report, and is the author of several books on Paris, she translated Lamia Ziadé’s memoir Bye Bye Babylon, and co-edited the photography book Keep Your Eye on the Wall: Palestinian Landscapes.
English PEN is one of the world's oldest human rights organisations and the founding centre of PEN International, a worldwide writers’ association with 130 centres in more than 90 countries. The charity works to promote literature and to defend freedom of expression in the UK and internationally.
Photo © Sally Hayden
More Information:
The venue is seating only. All seats are unreserved and are taken on a first come first serve basis.
The venue is fully accessible, with use of ramps and the upstairs bar is accessible with use of a platform lift.
The bar is located on the first floor and will be open from the stated door time.
Strictly no food or drink may be brought from outside into the venue. Water bottles must be emptied before entering the venue, with refilling stations available inside.