The fourth edition of Kerala Literature Festival, claimed to be the second largest literary festival in Asia, will kick off here in less than a month from now. The event will be held on Kozhikode beach from January 10 to 13.
Poet K. Satchidanandan, director of the festival, said in a note that the growth of the festival in just three years had been phenomenal, both in terms of the range and quality of its content, and the number of participants and the audience.
“One central theme running through the deliberations this time is diversity that we believe is central to any idea of real democracy, especially in the Indian context of cultural standardisation sought by hegemonic forces. The festival is conceived as an open platform for dialogue, dissent, and discussion, the spaces for which seem to have been shrinking over the years.”
It is also a space for three generations of Malayalam writers to meet and debate issues and evaluate the recent transformations in idiom and sensibility. It enables writers and thinkers in Kerala to interact with their counterparts from other parts of Indian and abroad. This time, Welsh literature will be in focus.
Focus on Marathi
From this year on, a new series on Indian literature will also be launched. The focus language this time will be Marathi, represented by 12 of the best Marathi writers including playwrights, poets, novelists, critics and prose writers.
Five writers from the Northeast too will be present. Sitakant Mahapatra, Pratibha Ray, Bhalchandra Nemade, and M.T. Vasudevan Nair, all Jnanpith Award-winning writers, will attend the festival. Another speciality will be a three-day workshop for translating poetry assisted by ‘Literature Across Frontiers’, the products of which will be presented.
Historian Ramachandra Guha will deliver the keynote address. Arundhati Roy, Harsh Mander, Swami Agnivesh, Shashi Tharoor, Jeet Thayil, P. Sainath, Miki Desai, Anita Nair, Keki N. Daruwalla, Devdutt Pattanaik, and Manu S. Pillai among others and noted Indian scientists will participate in debates.
The festival has a parallel, theme-based film festival curated by Beena Paul where films by women across the world will be screened and discussed besides cultural programmes every evening by Indian and foreign artists and musicians. A book fair will also accompany the literary festival. The recent floods and the post-sump economy have made KLF initiate Kerala’s first literary crowdfunder.
The official website is www.keralaliterature
