City and Writer Symposium Author Posters

In March 2024, a diverse lineup of award-winning writers came together at NYU Abu Dhabi to celebrate and share their writing. The evening was inspired by the column “The City and the Writer” for Words without Borders magazine celebrating its 20th anniversary. The column takes readers on journeys—ruminations on urban life and the imagination, literature and language, translation and transitions.

The curator of this global gathering, Nathalie Handal, invited NYUAD design to create a series of limited-edition posters inspired by the words of the featured writers. We chose to use the literal words themselves – the letters and glyphs of each quote – to create an image evocative of the city each writer had written about. The series of 13 posters was presented to each author at the symposium and will be on permanent display in the Arts & Humanities building.