Palestinian writer Adania Shibli reflects on the formative experiences that shaped her as a storyteller—from growing up surrounded by books to discovering the power of fiction as a form of play and resistance.
“For me, learning to write meant taking part in this practice of writing,” Shibli explains. “Somehow it came mainly from reading, being surrounded by these books as a reader.” As a child, she spent hours immersed in literature, reimagining the stories she read and turning them into her own: “I used to be a lonely kid… I would wander in nature, carrying a book, and thinking a continuation of these books.”
Shibli describes how literature provided a means of navigating both personal and collective histories. “My parents were 15 when the Nakba took place in 1948, but this is something they never spoke about,” she recalls. “So, narration—or the impossibility of narration—was very present in our daily life.” Books, she suggests, offered a way to fill these silences: “You’re lost for words, but then you have all these books that somehow bring something back to you.”
The act of writing, for Shibli, remains inseparable from the act of play. “It felt like playing as a kid,” she says. “You would play with toys, but for me, it was playing in this notebook and writing… until now, perhaps, it’s a playing, but it is a serious playing, a committed playing.”
Reflecting on her literary influences, Shibli highlights the significance of Palestinian authors such as Ghassan Kanafani and Emile Habibi, whose books were once off-limits to her. “There was always a ‘not yet’—a sense that I wasn’t ready for these books,” she says. “And this ‘not yet’ is very important. I don’t take it as an act of prevention, but an act of thinking, growing with this impossibility until you realize why it’s possible now.”
Adania Shibli, born in Palestine in 1974, is a celebrated author, essayist and cultural critic. Her acclaimed works include Touch (2010) and Minor Detail (2017), which was longlisted for the International Booker Prize. Shibli’s writing is known for its poetic prose and exploration of memory, identity, and the limits of narration. Shibli holds a Ph.D. from the University of East London in Media and Cultural Studies. Her dissertation is titled Visual Terror: A Study of the Visual Compositions of the 9/11 Attacks and Major Attacks in the ‘War on Terror’ by British and French Television Networks. Adania Shibli continues to be a vital voice in contemporary literature, bridging personal and political realities through her work.
Lotte Folke Kaarsholm interviewed Adania Shibli in connection with the Louisiana Literature festival at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in August 2024.
Camera: Rasmus Quistgaard
Edit: Signe Boe Petersen
Produced by Christian Lund
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2026
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