Every January, Dubai opens a new chapter in its cultural calendar with the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, a celebration where stories step beyond the page and into lived experience. For one week, the city becomes a meeting point for literature lovers, culture enthusiasts and creative minds, united by a shared belief in the power of words to inspire, challenge and connect.
More than a literary event, Emirates LitFest is a space for dialogue and discovery. It brings together readers and writers, thinkers and storytellers, across generations and genres, creating moments that linger long after the final session ends.
What is Emirates LitFest?
The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature is one of the UAE’s most influential cultural gatherings and a cornerstone of the region’s creative scene. Organised by the Emirates Literature Foundation, the festival hosts an international programme of novelists, poets, journalists, academics and artists, alongside emerging voices from the Arab world.
Its programme spans fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s literature and cultural debate, offering author talks, panel discussions, workshops and interactive sessions. What makes LitFest distinctive is its openness: conversations move freely between global perspectives and local narratives, reflecting the UAE’s diverse and evolving literary identity.
When and where?
The 18th edition of Emirates LitFest takes place from 21 to 27 January 2026 at the InterContinental Dubai Festival City. For the duration of the festival, the venue transforms into a vibrant hub of creativity, filled with conversations, performances and hands-on experiences that invite participation rather than passive listening.
What to see and do
A defining strength of Emirates LitFest is its strong focus on Emirati voices. The festival continues to honour the UAE’s rich literary heritage while supporting contemporary writers and thinkers shaping its cultural future. In collaboration with Dubai Culture, Emirati authors, poets and creatives take centre stage across the programme.
Standout sessions include conversations with Emirati contributors featured in +971, offering personal reflections on identity, creativity and the realities of cultural production in the UAE. Poetry lovers can look forward to performances and talks by Dr Afra Atiq, whose interdisciplinary practice bridges poetry, performance and visual storytelling, exploring themes of heritage, memory and legacy across multiple languages.
For aspiring writers, the festival offers practical learning opportunities, including intensive workshops such as fiction writing bootcamps that delve into plot, character development, suspense and narrative structure. These sessions provide rare access to professional insight while encouraging participants to develop their own voices.
Families are equally central to the festival’s spirit. Emirates LitFest is proudly family-friendly, with engaging programming for children and young readers. One of the most anticipated sessions features MC Grammar, the award-winning educator who transforms grammar and language learning into energetic performances using rap, rhythm and rhyme, proving that learning can be both meaningful and fun.
Art in the Middle at LitFest
Adding a contemporary, street-level creative edge to the festival, Art in the Middle presents LitFest After Hours, featuring “Tag It: An Introduction to Graffiti”, led by UAE muralist and creative storyteller Captain Barboza.
This hands-on workshop introduces participants to the creative process behind graffiti and urban art, beginning with an exploration of the artist’s murals and collaborations across the UAE. A live spray-paint demonstration follows, offering insight into how graffiti artists combine colour, design and attitude to tell bold visual stories.
Participants are then invited to pick up a spray can themselves, experiment with techniques and express their ideas in a guided, supportive environment. With space for questions, discussion and practical experimentation, the workshop reflects the festival’s broader ethos: creativity as something to be lived, not just observed.
A festival of discovery
Emirates LitFest rewards curiosity. While planning is helpful, some of the most memorable moments happen unexpectedly, during a session you didn’t plan to attend or a conversation sparked in between events. It is a festival that encourages wandering, listening and discovering new voices.
In a fast-moving world, Emirates Airline Festival of Literature offers something increasingly rare: time to think, to listen and to connect. It is not only a celebration of books, but of ideas, creativity and the shared human need to tell stories.
