Poets, novelists, and language experts will assemble here for a three-day festival celebrating the glory of Malayalam language and tradition from Tuesday.
The festival, Viswa Malayala Mahotsavam, organised by the Department of Cultural Affairs and the Kerala Sahithya Akademi, will be inaugurated at the University Senate Hall by President Pranab Mukherjee at 10.30 a.m.
Venues
From the afternoon, Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium, VJT Hall and Kanakakunnu Palace will become venues for poetry recitals, seminars and discussions on the craft of storytelling.
Various forms of Kerala’s traditional dance and cultural programmes will be staged in the evenings.
Rare chance
Lovers of literature will get a rare opportunity to listen to the African writer Ben Okri, a Booker-Prize-winner, on Wednesday. Mr. Okri’s programme will be held at the Olympia Chamber at Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium at 10 a.m.
The writer will be introduced to the audience by Chief Secretary K. Jayakumar, who is himself a poet and writer, and Thiruvananthapuram MP and Union Minister of State Shashi Tharoor, who is an acclaimed writer himself.
Programmes
Among the programmes slated for Tuesday are a discussion on “The poet and the poem” (VJT Hall at 2.30 p.m.); a seminar on “We and our language” (Kanakakunnu Palace at 2.30 p.m.); a seminar on folk arts culture (Kanakakunnu Palace at 5 p.m.); a seminar on Malayalam cinema as an expression of art (Olympia Chamber at Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium at 2.30 p.m.) and another seminar on new media (at the stadium at 2.30 p.m.)
