First held in November 2005, the Arts in Marrakech (AiM) festival is the first major Trilingual (English, Arabic & French) festival in North Africa. Focusing on cutting-edge contemporary art and literature it heralded Marrakech as a hot new destination in the arts and literature world alongside Venice, Edinburgh and Miami. The event was attended by such prodigious names as Anthony Gormley, Hanif Kureishi and Annie Lennox, and attracted an impressive gathering of writers, artists, intellectuals and critics.

AiM 2007 brought acclaimed writers, directors and artists from across Morocco and the world together in a rich forum of debate and cooperation. Some of the highlights included Alan Yentob discussing with John Boorman, Richard E. Grant and Faouzi Bensaidi, the ups and downs of creating auto-biographical films; a timely and spirited debate about literature and identity with Hari Kunzru, Mohsin Hamid, Yassin Adnan and, arguably one of Morocco’s greatest living writers, Edmond El Maleh; superb readings by Hari Kunzru, Zadie Smith and Mohsin Hamid from their latest novels; and evocative poetry readings in Arabic and English by Moroccan poet Yassin Adnan and Northern Irish poet Nick Laird.

AiM 2009 promises even more and is set to open on Thursday 19th November – Save the date!