“The home for writers”, as Sahitya Akademi defines itself, has announced that its annual literary festival ‘Sahiotsav’ or Festival of Letters will start this Monday. This time, the six-day festival will be special as the Akademi completes 60 years of existence on March 12.
The festival has for the first time included dance and song performances based on folk and poetic legacies of the country, a symposium on unwritten languages of India and several programmes that will go on from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The festival will begin with an exhibition. On the first evening, 24 Sahitya Akademi Award winners for 2014 would be presented the awards. This time Bodo language writer Urkhao Gwra Brahma along with Munnawar Rana for Urdu, Adil Jussawala for English and Ramesh Chandra Shah for Hindi would be among the star attractions.
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The other highlights include the writers’ meet on day two in which the award winning authors will speak about their experiences with the scholars/writers and others, and the young writers’ meet in which the akademi has picked up writers from across the country who are below 40. They will interact with aspiring writers.
An illustration workshop for young writers and a panel discussion on how to write for children are also on the cards. Called “The Yuva Sahitya” and “Spin-a-Tale” respectively, these two sections were initiated two years ago and have been popular among visitors, claims the Akademi. This time, some 25 young writers will come for the festival and a discussion on children’s books and illustrations would mark a few sessions.
Among some serious discussions, a three-day national seminar on “The region and the nation in Indian fiction” that would be inaugurated by eminent English writer Kiran Nagarkar will be followed by a symposium on unwritten languages of India”.
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K. Sreenivasarao, Secretary, Sahitya Akademi said: “This section will see several scholars and linguists from different parts of the country on one platform for the first time.”
India has 180 languages and several of them have no scripts. The festival this time will also focus on these languages, Sreenivasarao added.
The Northeast regions will get a national platform under “Purvattori” (meaning easterners) in which several scholars and writers from the Northeast States, including award-winning writer Arupa Kalita, would interact with the visitors.
The festival that will see around 170 writers and scholars including Prof. Gopi Chand Narang, Aashish Nandy, who will also deliver a lecture on the first day, Uday Narayan Singh, K. Sachchidananadan, Alok Bhalla and Giriraj Kishore is open to all.
Last year, the festival was managed on a “shoe-string” budget of Rs.14 crore. The Akademi secretary said: “We had for the first time held 465 literary programmes, and published 561 books last year, apart from 180 book exhibitions and 102 awards. This year, it had asked for Rs.35 crore from government as the budget.
The Akademi is looking for “good direct translators” and will hold a translators’ workshop to do away with this shortage.”