Dubai: A connoisseur of books, music and all things cultural, Philip Frayne, the United States Consul General to the UAE, was a prominent figure at the opening ceremony of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature 2021 on Thursday. Forging cross-cultural ties with the UAE, he expressed solidarity and support for the three US writers who are part of the festival this year: Victoria Montgomery Brown, Allison Williams and Max Stanton. Talking to Gulf News about the unique bilateral cultural ties that a festival like this can help build, Frayne expressed happiness that despite the restrictions that the pandemic imposed, three US authors who were already in the UAE were representing US this year. “The US Consulate has supported the festival since 2018. In the past three years, we supported ten US authors at this festival. This year because of the pandemic, travel was difficult, so we are supporting the three US authors who were already in the UAE,” Frayne explained.