Palestinian Ahlam Bsharat and Dutch Nikki Dekker win the 2025 International Writers-in-Residence Programme in Granada
The International Writers-in-Residence Program of Granada, organized by Granada UNESCO City of Literature office (Arts Department of the City Council of Granada) in collaboration with the University of Granada —through three of its vice-rectorates, including the Vice-Rectorate for University Extension, Heritage and Institutional Relations— as well as the Federico García Lorca Chair of La Madraza and the Corrala de Santiago, reaches its eighth edition in 2025.
The international call for applications took place last June with the essential collaboration of the UNESCO Cities of Literature network, resulting in a spectacular increase in interest and number of applications compared to previous years, 2022 and 2024, which had until now registered the highest numbers.
420 applications from around the world
While 167 applications were submitted in 2024 from 49 countries, the 2025 call received 420 applications from 65 countries, representing a 151% increase over the previous year. Once again, as has been increasingly the case in recent editions, a remarkable number of authors of very high literary quality and with outstanding careers at both local and international levels applied for the residency.
The jury’s decision
The jury, composed of Rosa Berbel, writer and professor at the University of Granada; Jesús Ortega, Focal Point of the Granada UNESCO City of Literature office; and Miguel Carrera, director of the Federico García Lorca Chair and head of the Literature Department at La Madraza – Center for Contemporary Culture of the University of Granada, decided to award the 2025 Granada International Writers’ Residencies to Ahlam Bsharat (1975), Palestinian fiction writer and poet with a distinguished international career, and Nikki Dekker (1989), one of the most promising voices in contemporary Dutch literature.
Born in Tammun, in the Jordan Valley (Palestine), Ahlam Bsharat holds a PhD in Arabic Literature from An-Najah University in Nablus. A widely recognized and prestigious author in her country, her extensive work spans fiction and poetry, with a particular focus on children’s and young adult literature. With a lyrical and symbolic voice combined with great ethical depth, her writing explores stories related to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, addressing themes such as memory, cultural resistance, inner freedom, and the everyday dignity of people living under occupation. Her project in Granada will consist of a young adult novel centered on a unique form of Palestinian resistance in Israeli prisons, known as “Ambassadors for Freedom.”
Nikki Dekker, poet, fiction writer, and essayist based in Utrecht, is a fresh and original voice with great international potential in the current Dutch literary landscape. Her published works have received wide critical acclaim in the Netherlands, particularly her two most recent titles —a novel that is also a memoir and an essay, and an essay that is also a narrative. Both books weave together personal stories, images from nature, and social themes in highly original ways.
During her residency in Granada, she will begin work on a new hybrid project —part narrative, part essay— provisionally titled “The Book of Whales,” which will explore this animal and its relationship with humans across centuries and continents.
Ahlam Bsharat and Nikki Dekker will reside in the Corrala de Santiago of the University of Granada from November 3 to December 2, 2025, and will take part in public events organized by Granada UNESCO City of Literature and La Madraza – Center for Contemporary Culture of the University of Granada.
Ahlam Bsharat
Ahlam Bsharat (Tammun, Jordan Valley, Palestine, 1975) is a novelist, poet, essayist, and creative writing teacher. She lives in Ramallah, West Bank, where she currently serves as Head of the Department of Children’s Literature at the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, after twelve years as a university professor. Since 2005 she has gained wide recognition for her young adult novels, illustrated children’s books, and short story collections. Her YA novel Ismi al-Haraki Farashah was included in the 2012 IBBY Honor List (International Board on Books for Young People), recognizing the world’s best books for young readers, and was translated into English in 2016 under the title Code Name: Butterfly. In 2024, Bsharat was nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for her contribution to children’s and young adult literature, and in 2025 she received the Andrés Pío Medal in Venezuela.
Nikki Dekker
Nikki Dekker (Amersfoort, the Netherlands, 1989) is a novelist, essayist, and creator of podcasts and radio documentaries. In 2018 she published the chapbook een voorwerp dat nog leeft (An Object That Still Lives), a hybrid text of political reflection, cultural criticism, and autofictional writing expressed through poetry and essay. Her first novel, diepdiepblauw (Deep Deep Blue, 2022), was widely acclaimed by Dutch critics, received the CCS Crone Stipendium, and was nominated for national awards such as the De Boon and Bronzen Uil prizes. The following year, De Volkskrant newspaper named her “Literary Talent of the Year.” In 2024 she published the narrative essay Graafdier, a finalist for both the Jan Hanlo Essay Prize and the Dutch Nature Book Award. Dekker writes essays and opinion columns for several Dutch media outlets and is a member of the editorial team of the literary magazine Tirade. She also collaborates with the interdisciplinary cultural producer De Nieuwe Oost, which works across literature, radio, and the visual arts.
