Fady Joudah: Notes on Solidarity
15 October 2026, 7pm
Palestinian-American poet, translator, and physician Dr. Fady Joudah will deliver the annual Edward W. Said London Lecture 2026, entitled Notes on Solidarity.
Drawing on his work across poetry, translation, and political thought, Joudah will examine the need for solidarity with Palestine in the English-speaking world to move beyond its current limits as capitalist morality and symbolic gesture. Instead, he calls for a deeper reckoning with Palestinian sovereignty as it is understood through the Arabic language and lived Palestinian experience.
Joudah is the author of several acclaimed poetry collections, as well as the forthcoming Exhibit G, a hybrid work of poems, essays, and photographs through Palestinian eyes, that renders both the catastrophic loss, and the enduring force of beauty, love and Palestinian interiority and life. Joudah was a National Book Award for Poetry finalist (2024) for his sixth collection of poems entitled […].
The evening will be hosted by Dr. Aimee Shalan at the Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, South Kensington, London SW7 2AR.
About the Edward W. Said London Lecture Series:
Literary critic, writer, activist, and spokesperson for the Palestinian cause, Edward Said (1935-2003) was one of the most influential intellectuals of his time. Supported by the A. M. Qattan Foundation and London Review of Books, the lecture series aims to promote his spirit through the continued examination of the links between culture and politics in the Middle East and across the world. With previous lectures by Raji Sourani, Abuldrazak Gurnah, Susan M. Akram, Hassan Jabareen, Wadie Said, Philippe Sands, Amira Hass, Mahmood Mamdani, Naomi Klein, Marina Warner, Rashid Khalidi, Ahdaf Soueif, Raja Shehadeh, Noam Chomsky and Daniel Barenboim, the series gives his legacy a public platform in the very heart of cultural and intellectual life in the UK. Find out more about the series and previous speakers here.
Tickets: £11.50 - £15*
TICKETS
* Concession tickets are available for recipients of universal or pension credit, students (with valid student ID) and under-16s. In addition, we have a limited number of free tickets available for those who find the ticket price to be a barrier and would otherwise not be able to attend this year’s lecture. Please email us to request a free ticket.
The lecture theatre at RGS is equipped with a hearing loop. The balcony and rows J-N have the strongest signal. Please email us to reserve these seats.
Tickets are non-refundable.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Ladan Osman
BIO
Fady Joudah is the author of […], a 2024 finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry and winner of the 2024 Jackson Poetry Prize. He has also published six collections of poems: The Earth in the Attic; Alight; Textu, a book-long sequence of short poems whose meter is based on cellphone character count; Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance; and Tethered to Stars. He has translated several collections of poetry from Arabic and is the co-editor and co-founder of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. He was a winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition in 2007 and has received the Jackson Poetry Prize, a PEN award, a Banipal/Times Literary Supplement prize from the UK, the Griffin Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Arab American Book Award. He lives in Houston with his wife and kids, where he practices internal medicine.
Aimee Shalan is a British-Palestinian and Director of Makan, an independent organisation providing transformative education to strengthen the movement for Palestinian liberation. She is also Chair of the British-Palestinian Committee, a trustee of Shubbak Arts Festival, and a member of the Palestinian policy network, Al Shabaka. Her previous roles range from Chief Executive of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) to Co-founder and Director of Pressure Cooker Arts, a not-for-profit arts and advocacy organisation with a focus on creating links with communities in Palestine. Aimee has appeared frequently on broadcast media and has written for a wide variety of media outlets. She also holds a doctorate in the Politics of Palestinian Literature.
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