Writer Sethu will lead the maiden Kesari Memorial South Indian Literary Festival that will get under way at Madavanaparambu, the resting place of the maverick thinker and writer Kesari Balakrishna Pillai, on April 9.
The three-day festival will see participation by about 50 writers, poets, journalists and critics from the five south Indian languages.
Held primarily to commemorate the stupendous contribution of Kesari to Malayalam language and culture as also to celebrate the rich cultural and trade heritage of the Paravur region wherein the erstwhile port of Muziris falls, the festival will uniquely discuss the writings of Kesari, the contemporariness of literature, new fiction and reading, issues of art depiction and freedom, tradition and secularism and the present state of literature in the south besides the heritage of Paravur.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is slated to open the fest at 9 30 a.m. on April 9.
Alongside the fest will be Samskara-2017, a festival of indigenous arts of Kerala, to be held at Ambedkar Park at Paravur. V.D. Satheesan and S. Sarma, MLAs, will be chairman and general convener of the fest respectively. The valedictory session of the fest will be addressed by Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran.
