B'lore litfest from today
Promising a three-day escape to an enduring world of high calibre writing, poetry, books, music and art, the ‘Bangalore Literature Festival 2012’ is all set for a spectacular kick-off at the City’s Jayamahal Palace on Friday.
Diehard fans of the written word and bibliophiles couldn’t have asked for a richer gathering of national and international writers, modern and contemporary thinkers.
The Festival curtains will rise at 4.30 pm. Formally inaugurating the show will be the leading lights of the literary world including U R Ananthamurthy, Chandrashekhara Kambara, Javed Akhtar, Nisar Ahmed and Shashi Deshpande. A quarterly literary review journal, Beantown, will also be launched on the occasion.
A session on the ‘Craft of Poetry’, featuring Gulzar in conversation with Pavan Varma will get the festival going before pulp fiction writer Chetan Bhagat takes over with his “Crossfire.” Also on the first day agenda is a classical music evening performance ‘Strings Attached’ featuring Dr Jayanthi Kumaresh and R Kumaresh.
Day Two will feature a range of literary, poetry and general interest panel discussions, interviews and conversations on Kannada literature, biographies and memoirs, current trends in the publishing world, ferment in West Asia, writing on sport, literature in the Twitter era among others.
Participating authors include Shehan Karunatilaka, Nisar Ahmed, Boria Majumdar, Chandrashekhara Kambara, Baragur Ramachandrappa, Anita Nair, Sudheendra Kulkarni, Harish Bijoor, Caroline Newbury, Gautam Padmanabhan, John D Balian, B Raman, Khaleelur Rehman and Mamta Sagar.
Noted author-journalist Tavleen Singh’s latest book ‘Durbar’ will be launched on the second day, followed by a panel discussion on biographies and memoirs and a poetry session ‘Nazm aur Tarkash’ featuring Gulzar and Javed Akhtar. The second half of the day also has sessions on children’s literature being organised by Bangalore Literature Festival in association with Pratham Books, Goethe-Institut in Bangalore/Max Mueller Bhavan and Deccan Herald Newspaper in Education.
Scheduled for the final day are sessions on fiction and new age writing, writing on India and a discussion on the many cities that Bangalore encompasses within itself and search thereby for the soul of the City. Novelist Shobha De’s book “Sethji” will be launched on that day. The closing session at the festival titled ‘Bangarada Manushya’ will be Bangalore Literature Festival’s tribute to the iconic Dr Rajkumar in the 100th Year of Indian Cinema.
The Festival will open at 9.30 am on both Saturday and Sunday. Entry is free and open to all and registration can be done on the website www.bangaloreliteraturefestival.org.
