His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, in his capacity as the Ruler of Dubai, has issued decree No.8 for 2013 establishing the Emirates Literature Foundation as a public entity and an independent corporate body.
The new literature entity will have 3 main objectives, namely Emirates airlines, Dubai Culture and the Book Festival Foundation.
The emirates literary foundation will be managed by a board of trustees under the chairmanship of Shaikh Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation and Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline and Group.
The board members include Shaikha Latifa Bint Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Isobel Abulhoul, DrLo’ayMohammad Belhaoul, Maurice Flanagan, Dr Rafee’a Obaid Gobash, and Dr Hessa Abdullah Lootah.
The newly formed foundation will be responsible for organising, managing and supervising the Emirates Airline Literature Festival on an annual basis, as well as for attracting top world writers and lettermen to enrich the event with their creative literary works. The festival will be open and accessible to all.
The foundation will work to enhance and provide a proper environment for local, authors, poets and lettermen to enable them to give their best intellectual outputs.
It will also encourage literary production in both Arabic and English in particular, as well as other languages, with a focus on children’s literature. The foundation will also encourage reading and foster a love of reading among schoolchildren, out of their classes.
It will coordinate with the Dubai Culture and other relevant bodies to establish the “Book Centre” to be home to literary activities throughout the year, and also encourage authors.
The foundation will invite an elite group of Emirati and expatriate writers to attend international literature-related events and festivals.