Bringing the City Beautiful in the literary destination of the country, Chandigarh literature Festival, 2013, will be inaugurated on Thursday. The fest will take off with a panel discussion of authors and critics on “What comes first: Great writing or Great criticismIJ” This will be followed by an evening with poets of Chandigarh.
Next three days will include panel discussions touching upon literature, politics and society. There will be a variety of events aimed at increasing audience participation. These will include Guess-the-Book reading sessions, art and writing competitions, and other interactive exercises.
Midnight’s Children, film from Oscar-nominated director Deepa Mehta, based on the Booker Prize winning novel by Salman Rushdie will also be screened at the festival. The film director, Deepa Mehta will also be visiting the festival. At the festival, 13 individual books will be dissected, analysed and read out. Thirteen of India’s leading literary critics were invited to nominate a book of their choice.
Chandigarh-based Theatre for Theatre group will enact passages from some of these books. In other words, these chosen books will be celebrated the way excellent books truly should. “This unique format of celebrating the books rather than the authors is interestingly going to change the face of literature festivals”, said Mitul Dixit, Chairman, Adab Foundation.
The Day 1 Sessions will include: ‘Manzilain - The Destinations’: Author Mahmood Shaam in conversation with critic Nirupama Dutt; ‘This Side That Side: Restorying Partition’: Author Vishwajyoti Ghosh in conversation with critic Giriraj Kiradoo; ‘Day Scholar’: Author Siddharth Chowdhury in conversation with critic Trisha Gupta; ‘Cuckold’: Author Kiran Nagarkar in conversation with critic Jerry Pinto. Critics will present their analysis of the books and help audience members gain insight on the literary merits (or demerits) of the books.