The prolonged lockdown, which is now making people impatient and weary, still has some silver linings in store.
One such is Writers Beyond Distance, an initiative of the English department of the Karim City College.
Under it, literature lovers including students and teachers will get an opportunity to listen to well-known authors online. The first such session is on May 27, Wednesday, with author Tabish Khair who is based in Denmark.
The meeting will take place on Google Meet.
Khair, who was born and brought up in Gaya, Bihar, was a journalist once. He is also a poet, travel writer and novelist. Khair's honours and prizes include the First Prize in the The Poetry Society (India) Competition held in 1995, an honorary fellowship for creative writing from the Baptist University of Hong Kong, fellowships at New Delhi's universities and a by-fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge University, UK. He is currently based in Denmark.
His books include Babu Fictions, The Bus Stopped which was shortlisted for the Encore Award (UK) and The Thing About Thugs, set in Victorian London.
The second in the series is the American-Canadian novelist of Indian descent, Shauna Singh Baldwin. Her session is on May 29.
Her 2000 novel What the Body Remembers won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and her 2004 novel The Tiger Claw was a finalist for the Giller Prize.
The sessions are expected to be of two hours.
Head of English department at Karim City College Yahiya Ibrahim said that usually colleges in Jharkhand don’t get the chance to host acclaimed writers from abroad but as the world goes online accessibility has increased.
“Though the immediate reason for holding such a session is the ongoing lockdown, as a department of English, we would like to continue hosting authors for literature lovers. This is for everyone who loves and understands literature. Interaction with these authors will make students learn more about writing, style, creativity and imagination, influences and other aspects of literature,” said Ibrahim.
The department has also started an initiative called E-cademy, a web interaction series between English teachers across colleges and universities of India and students and teachers. The college has organised six lectures in May and it will continue in June too.
“We will organise E-cademy at intervals. This initiative is highly academic and meant for students and teachers of English but it is not restricted to the college only,” added Ibrahim.
