Margaret Obank, Banipal magazine’s co-founder, and writer and publisher Peter Mortimer, invite you to join them at the Lit & Phil Library for a grand evening of literature, celebrating 25 years of Banipal Magazine of Modern Arab Literature and 75 issues. Since No 1 in 1998, Banipal has thrown a wide open window onto the rich kaleidoscope of poetry, novels and short stories from the Arab world – from Syria to Sudan, from Algeria to Iraq, from the Gulf to Palestine.

Join us for a grand evening of readings, videos, translations, discussions and questions with Syrian poet NOURI AL-JARRAH, whose latest book was inspired by a Roman tombstone in Fort Arbeia, fiction writer HABIB ABDULRAB SARORI from Yemen, currently Banipal Visiting Writer Fellow at St Aidan’s College, University of Durham, and Banipal magazine’s co-founder and writer SAMUEL SHIMON, from Iraq. By coincidence all three were born in 1956.