The second edition of the Kumaon Literary Festival will be held in Uttarakhand from 11 October and will witness the participation of a host of writers and publishers from Pakistan besides several bestselling authors from the country.
This year s festival is scheduled to be held at two locations – the Jim s Jungle Retreat in Jim Corbett National Park and Te Aroha in Dhanachuli. The festival is part of a larger vision to develop Dhanachuli into a model cultural village.
There were will sessions on different topics including “Shifting Notions of the Nation State: Will national ideologies dominate global politics in 21st century?”, “Voice From the Well: How is Dalit Literature redefining perceptions and mind-sets”, “Jaane Kahan Gaye Woh Din: Will the era of epic lyricists and singers ever return?”, “Yours versus my nationalism – Being on the wrong side of the ‘patriotism’ divide” and “The Difficulty of Being Good, Star-Then & Now: The idea of a star in Hindi cinema over the last decades”.
Some books including biographies on actress Rekha and filmmaker Nasir Hussain will also be launched at the festival which will be on till October 15.
Many famous names from the world of literature, publishing, cinema and politics are on the guest list of the festival.
T M Krishna, who was recently awarded Magsaysay Award, will deliver the keynote address. Authors like Amish Tripathi, Jean Echenoz, Ravi Subramanian, Preeti Shenoy, Jerry Pinto, Shinie Antony and Rakhshanda Jalil; Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Justice A K Sikri, Pavan Varma, Shatrughan Sinha from the world of politics and law and leading publishers are likely to attend
Many speakers like Afia Aslam, Ali Akbar Natiq, Ameena Saiyid, Asif Farrukhi, Asif Noorani, Sabyn Javeri, Mohsin Sayeed from Pakistan are also likely to attend the festival.
Says Sumant Batra, founder of Kumaon Literary Festival, “The first (2015) edition of KLF was an unprecedented success positioning the festival among the most popular literature events of the country. We aspire to raise the bar further this year.”
Daleep Akoi, chair of the KLF Organising Committee, says “KLF is the best thing that could happen to Uttarakhand. It has brought the state on global literary map.”
(With PTI inputs)
