Back after a year’s break, the 45th International Kolkata Book Fair is already a big success, both in terms of footfall and sale. So on hindsight, the organisers of the Kolkata Literature Festival, which will start tomorrow on the fair ground, feel they could have held it over the usual three days instead of the reduced duration.
The eighth edition, to be held in association with The Telegraph, will be inaugurated on Friday by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, starting a day and a half of conversations and deliberation on literature, dance, music and tributes to luminaries.
There are sessions to mark as many as seven anniversary milestones. The day’s second session will have filmmaker Suman Ghosh delivering a keynote introduction and then joining Mamata Shankar and Sabyasachi Chakraborty to salute centenarian Satyajit Ray with Ashoke Viswanathan.
Dancers’ Guild and the consulate general of Italy will showcase works of poet Dante Alighieri in his 700th death anniversary year at 7pm. Abanindranath Tagore’s 150 years will be marked by musings on the Bengal School and its legacy by Shuvaprasanna, art critic R. Siva Kumar, Jayanta Sengupta and Sampurna Chakravorty.
There are sessions on 250 years of Raja Rammohun Roy, 150 years of Rishi Aurobindo, and Ashutosh Mukhopadhyay whose centenary just went by and whose novels have been made into memorable films like Deep Jwele Jai, Kal Tumi Aleya and Saat Pake Bandha.
The 75th anniversary of India’s freedom too will be comemmorated in a session.
The festival will also reflect on how the pandemic has affected children’s reading habits and schooling, with principals Seema Sapru and John Bagul joining Pandob Goenda creator Sashthipada Chattopadhyay and others.
The concluding session will be in Bengali on the future of Bengali literature. Pracheta Gupta and Srijato will be among the authors to be in conversation with publisher Tridib Chatterjee.
Festival director Sujata Sen has arranged for live music at the start on each day. All sessions will be streamed live on Facebook and YouTube.
What: Kolkata Literature Festival at Central Park in Salt Lake
When: Friday, Saturday
Friday
- Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, inaugural address, 2.30pm
- 100 years of Satyajit Ray, 3pm to 3.45pm
- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, keynote, 4.45pm
- Devdutt Pattanaik, on Myths, Mudras and Metaverse, 6pm
Saturday
- India@75: Freedom of Expression, 3pm to 3.45pm (Sumantra Bose, Krishnan Srinivasan among the panelists)
- Impact of the pandemic on children’s reading and schooling, 4.05pm to 5pm