Laila Hourani is a cultural leader and novelist with over twenty-five years’ experience in art, culture and media development, intercultural relations, narrative and partnership building for social impact. Her debut novel Baoh, published in 2009 by Al-Adab in Beirut, is inspired by her journeys of displacement as a descendant of a Palestinian Nakba survivor refugee family to Syria.
Laila moved to Norway in 2021 to join the Norwegian artistic rights organization MIMETA, as Program Director. She left MIMETA in 2023 and shifted to self-employment as an expert consultant. She has provided consultancies to several international and Arab organizations and initiatives like Freemuse, the International Resource for Impact and Storytelling (IRIS), Culture Resource, Untold Stories and L’Art Rue. Laila has been Senior Program Officer Arts, Culture and media at the Ford Foundation MENA office in Egypt, NENA Regional Director Creativity and mutuality at the British Council in Syria and Information and Communication Assistant at UNICEF Syria. The strategies and programs Laila has developed within these institutions, have contributed to strengthening the independent arts, culture and media sectors in the Arab region, and supporting storytellers working in diaspora and under difficult conditions internationally. She has also contributed to the seeding and institutional strengthening of narrative change civil society organisations that gave voice to communities in distress, like Syrian refugees and artists at risk.
Laila is a Salzburg Global Seminars Fellow. She has served as a board and jury member in key regional and European organizations including: Cultural Resource (Al Mawred Al Thaqafi), Landscape of Hope, Ettijahat Independent Culture, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), Anna Lindh Foundation Citizens for Dialogue Program, Zurich University of the Arts Center for Creative Economies.