It’s that time of the year again. Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival is back with its 10th edition to be held from January 18 to 20. The festival is set to enrich our winter afternoons and evenings with captivating discussions, soulful poetry and music at Allen Park and the Park Mansion Lawn, on Park Street.
To be inaugurated at noon tomorrow at Allen Park in the presence of Anita Ratnam, Coonoor Kripalani and Tanushree Shankar, with Uma Kismat Paul as the guest of honour, accompanied by Anand Paul and family, the three-day event will start with the Oxford Junior Literary Festival (OJLF) special, ABC of Fit and Fun Moves. The other sessions of the day will include the fun-filled segment Dil Vil Pyar Vyar: What Men Want with author Ravinder Singh and Sufia Khatoon. This will be followed by a presentation by Alka Pande, Priti Paul and Kunal Basu, on Purnendu Pattrea’s graphics by Pinaki De. Pulitzer-winner Andrew Sean Greer will also be exchanging ideas in the session More or Less. To round things off, you can look forward to engaging in conversation with Upamanyu Chatterjee and Jerry Pinto in the session titled, The Revenge of the Non-vegetarian. Shashi Tharoor will end the proceedings with his segment, The Great Indian Paradox.
Author Paro Anand will be at hand to engage with teenagers and young adults on the topic Coming of Age at noon, while four more sessions in the lawn promise to keep audiences glued to their seats. These include Anuradha Roy discussing Time Will Say Nothing but I told You So with Sandip Roy; Off Centre: Writing the Real India with Prajwal Parajuly, Sumana Roy and Siddhartha Sharma; Food ka Alochona: Multi-lingual Kolkata Cuisine by Mir, Indrajit Lahiri and Sunando Banerjee and lastly Of Rebel Princess and warrior Queens: Revisiting the Harem with Ira Mukhoty and Syeda Hameed.
Alliance Franciase du Bengale, Goethe Institut and 2288, Development House are also venues for some of the events, including sessions with author Kunal Basu, Ruchira Gupta, Paromita Chakravarti, Saikat Majumdar and others. Expect some music and poetry at the Goethe Institut with Alif & Ulrike.
Day two will feature magnetic personalities like Devdutt Pattanaik, Ratna Pathak, Shobhaa De, Ravish Kumar and others engaging in conversations that promise enriching food for the soul.
There is more. Oxford Bookstore will also be hosting a few events including a poetry workshop by Madhura Banerjee, a YFLO Book Club Meet, performance poetry by Sufia Khatoon, creative writing workshops and more.