Pictured: Karine Polwart, Ali Smith, Nayrouz Qarmout and Val McDermid.<br /> <br /> Palestinian author Nayrouz Qarmout appears at the 2019 Edinburgh International Book Festival with best selling Scottish crime writer Val McDermid, Scottish singer-songwriter Karine Polwarth and writer Ali Smith.<br /> <br /> Nayrouz Qarmout is a Palestinian writer and activist. Born in Damascus in 1984, as a Palestinian refugee, she returned to the Gaza Strip, as part of the 1994 Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreement, where she now lives. She graduated from al-Azhar University in Gaza with a degree in Economics. She currently works in the Ministry of Women's Affairs, raising awareness of gender issues and promoting the political and economic role of women in policy and law, as well as the defence of women from abuse, and highlighting the role of women's issues in the media. Her political, social and literary articles have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines, and online. She has also written screenplays for several short films dealing with women's rights. She is a social activist and a member of several youth initiatives, campaigning for social change in Palestine.<br /> <br /> Born in Inverness, Ali Smith's first published book was Free Love and Other Stories (1995), which won the Saltire First Book of the Year Award. From this successful debut, her career continued to climb – her 2001 novel Hotel World, for instance, has received much critical acclaim, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. Hotel World was adapted for the stage and performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2007. Smith recently returned to short stories with The First Person and Other Stories (2008), an emotional and funny exploration of storytelling. 'She's a genius', said Alain de Botton of Smith; 'genuinely modern in the heroic, glorious sense'.<br /> <br /> © Dave Johnston / EEm
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