Bengaluru Literature Festival: Two Nobel winners, queer voices, diplomats, diaspora writers to make a splash
Shinie Anthony, curator and founder, Bengaluru Lit Festival says the two-day literary festival is very much a Bangalore experience and in that sense 'unique'
It may not be as big or significant as the Jaipur Literature festival nor as sombre and well-crafted as the Chennai Lit Fest.
But the Bengaluru Lit Fest, which kicks off at Lalit Ashok Hotel this weekend, has its own unique vibe. In its 13th edition, it seems to have carved a respectable space in the literary world in India and let’s say, its chic to say you are going to be at the city lit fest this weekend.
The two-day fest, starting on December 14, offers a motley mix of writers, who range from Indian American authors like Kiran Desai (last year, they brought the charming and talented Abraham Verghese) to local Kannada heavyweights like Jayant Kaikini and Girish Kasaravalli. The Kannadiga flavour simmers in a session on 'Kannada writing today' and another on Kannada dictionaries.
Bengaluru celebrities like Ramachandra Guha, Sudha Murty, Jeet Thayil, Githa Hariharan and Harini Nagendra will dominate the fest, which boasts of 350 panellists.
Content is new: Shinie Antony
According to Shinie Anthony, curator and founder, Bengaluru Lit Festival, “The content is absolutely new, no two BLFs are the same. We have two Nobel winners (Venki Ramakrishnan and Abhijit Banerjee), new authors, fresh voices, queer voices this time.”
The festival opens surprisingly with a book titled 'Hindutva Paradigm' by Indian politician Ram Madhav. (Are we in Delhi, you may well ask?) But to probably douse any angst, simultaneously, the organisers have organised a performance by an international legend who happens to live in our backyard – the Bengaluru-based violin virtuoso L Subramaniam. Truly, we don't see him enough.
In Anthony’s view, a session called the 'Queer Caravan', which brings together voices from the LGBTQIA+ community in India, France and Germany who share their stories; the performance by singer Harpreet called 'Ranjha Ranjha'; a session involving three ambassadors, David Puig from the Dominican Republic, Spain’s Juan Antonio March Pujol and Philip Green, Australian diplomat, and many children’s sessions are major highlights of the lit fest.
She says not to miss south actor Parvathy Thiruvothu, who will be talking about her craft.
New releases
Naturally, the big literary names, who are currently hogging the news for having released their latest books, will also grace this lit fest.
Be it William Dalrymple, who is travelling the length and brreadh of India with his 'Golden Road', which has triggered a lot of conversations (and also controversies) or Upamanyu Chatterjee with his new book, 'Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life' , which in fact, won the JCB Prize for Literature 2024.
Besides the lit fest's star, Kiran Desai, who is talking on the 'Diaspora Writer' , Nobel Prize winner Venki Ramakrishnan, who along with others will discuss ‘Light Years in Lines: How Science Speaks'.
There’s an interesting writer to follow at the fest. That is Prayaag Akbar, whose second novel 'Mother India', which cleverly and effectively draws the landscape ( how nasty social media trolls operate) we currently and unhappily live in. His book is set in Delhi, and at the lit fest he’s talking about 'The Sense of an Ending: Small Towm, Big City' on Sunday, December 15.
You can also catch acclaimed Malayalam author VJ James, whose English translation of 'The Book of Exodus', a searing portrait of a rural community living in the backwaters of Kochi, has hit bookstores.
Tamil literary icon Charu Nivedita will be there, along with his translator, Nandini Krishnan, to talk about his novel 'Conversations with Aurangzeb'.
If you ask Anthony how this festival has grown to such an extent, she replies, “The audience has been intense. It is very much a community festival. The team consists of a volunteers who put together a list of new interesting book titles all year through."
How will she describe the vibe at Bengalure lit fest? "BLF is very much a Bangalore experience, in that it is unique," she says.
