It’s time to celebrate books

The 7th Chandigarh Literature Festival -CLF, will be organised by Adab Foundation in association with Post Graduate Government College for Girls, Sector 11, Chandigarh at the college’s campus from November 1 to 3. The festival will see some of India’s best authors talking about books nominated by experts. The sessions will be interesting ones conducted by a critic, who will be in conversation with the author. 

The details of the festival were shared by Mitul Dikshit, chairman, Adab Foundation and Annie Zaidi, festival director, who is an award winning author, poetess and playwright.

“We have something fresh in store for literature lovers. This year at the fest, Tamasha group will present Blank Page, an interpretation of contemporary Indian poetry through theatre, music and movement. The group’s performers will also read a series of short stories. We will also hold a unique poetry event. A special poetry translators’ performance will see poetry from various languages from all over the world, rendered into English and other Indian languages,” said Dikshit.

The festival will see engaging sessions between some of the best critics and authors of India. “The 12 books being celebrated are Ek Thi Maina, Ek tha Kumhar, Diwali in Muzaffarnagar, The Epic City - The World on the Streets of Calcutta, The Wildings, The other Stories of Difference, Jal Thal Mal, If I Had To Tell It Again, Daughters of the Sun, Available Light, Padmavat, The Big Small Town: How Life Looks From Chandigarh’ and Ballad of Kaziranga,” said Annie Zaidi.

This time the festival explores a new genre by celebrating two books around wildlife. Nilanjana S. Roy’s award-winning book The Wildings and Dileep Chandan’s Ballad of Kaziranga.

There is something that movie buffs too can look forward to at CLF 2018. Two films which will be screened at the festival are Amar Kaushik’s directorial debut Stree and Shoojit Sirkar’s October. A screening of these films will be followed by sessions with Amar Kaushik and Shoojit.  

“This time we have curated the festival in a way which has all elements to attract literary enthusiasts, poetry lovers and film buffs,” sums up Mitul Dixit.