Mountain Echoes festival
Next month, the hills will come alive with the strains of literature. Mountain Echoes, The Literary Festival Initiative of the India–Bhutan Foundation, will be held in Thimphu, Bhutan, from August 9-11. The festival, in its fourth year, will have some of the most exciting names from the worlds of literature, arts and media.
This edition of Mountain Echoes will see names like Amish Tripathi, Dasho Kinley Dorji, Dr. Imeada Yoshiro, Jerry Pinto, Kelly Dorji, Namita Bhandare, Rahul Bose and Tarun Tejpal. Another attraction is the special photo exhibition by His Royal Highness Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck.
Mountain Echoes this year will focus on storytelling, plays, popular fiction, travel writing, creative non-fiction and graphic art.
The festival will also feature wildlife writer Saad Bin Jung, playwright Mahesh Dattani, Indian graphic artist Amruta Patil and Swiss graphic artists Andrea Caprez and Christopher Schuler. A panel discussion focussing on women in media will feature Malvika Singh, Barkha Dutt, Bachi Karkaria and Mrinal Pande. “We have tried to approach familiar genres from a new angle. We have introduced panels on humour and environment, on crossover and alternate cinema,” says Mita Kapur, CEO, Siyahi.
For more details visit >mountainechoes.org
Best of Young British Novelists
The British Council is launching its Best of Young British Novelists programme in association with Granta to present a once-a-decade opportunity to showcase 20 of the best British novelists under 40 years of age through a season of celebration, debate and inspiration.
British Council will tour 12 writers to 10 cities, live streaming their sessions across India through British Council’s venues. Audiences will also be invited to join literature festivals, competitions and debates. For three decades, Granta , the quarterly magazine, has showcased an array of talent that included Salman Rushdie, Hari Kunzru, Ben Okri and Zadie Smith.
This year’s touring list includes, Sunjeev Sahota, Ned Buauman, Evie Wyld, David Szalay, Joanna Kavenna, Xialolu Guo, Jenni Fagan, Benjamin Markovits, Nadifa Mohamed, Taiye Selasi, Kamila Shamsie and Adam Thriwell. Discussions will vary from British National Identity and Literature, Literature and Conflict, Representations of cities in literature, Narrating the 21st century and Family plots.
The cities include Delhi, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad from July to January. The Granta India tour kick starts with Sunjeev Sahota’s tour of Chandigarh and Delhi, the only Indian-origin writer on the BoBYN list.
For more details, visit >www.britishcouncil.in or e-mail arts.india@in. britishcouncil.org