The fifth edition of the Kalinga literary Festival would be held in the city from June 8 to 11. There will be more than 250 writers, poets, artists and performers dwelling on several issues.

From Pavan Verma to Nirupama Rao, from Vinod Dua to Amish Tripathy, from Rahat Indori to Nilamadhav Panda and from Sobhaa De to Vijaylakshmi Chhabra et al would be there.

Amish Tripathi, Nirupama Rao and Padmaj Pal would be conferred with  the Kalinga literary Awards of 2018.

There would be dedicated sessions on the youth, indigenous communities, mythology, history, governance, foreign relations, women, transgender, climate change, cinema, media and the radio.

There would be several one-to-one sessions with leading experts on the subjects. There would be a storytelling sessions promise to add new flavour to the literary spirit of the festival.

Besides, four awards like the Kalinga Sahitya Samman (for a writer in Odia), Kalinga International literary Award (for a writer in any global language),  Kalinga Karubaki literary Award (for Odia women writers) and Kalinga literary Youth Award would be conferred on the occasion.

For the first time, there would be a dedicated session on the transgender community. This session would discuss the recent socio-economic and policy developments regarding the transgender community and how to weigh the utility of the government initiatives on the basis of their lived experience of exclusion, discrimination, community, trans-community engagement.

There would be a cultural programme to showcase Odisha’s art, culture and literature on each day of the three-day event. The delegates and speakers would join the famous Ekamra Walk and Khandahiri Walk.