Over 700 litterateurs to take part in Sahitya Akademi's Festival of Letters from March 7

New Delhi, Mar 5 (PTI) Sahitya Akademi's annual literature festival, 'Sahityotsav: The Festival of Letters', will host 722 authors, poets and other notable figures of 53 Indian languages in nearly 120 sessions, starting from March 7 here, the organisation announced on Wednesday.
    Set around the theme of "Indian Literary Traditions: Heritage and Evolution", the festival will be inaugurated by culture and tourism minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Friday.
    The annual literary gala will showcase lectures and sessions by eminent writers and poets including Mamang Dai, Sanjoy Hazarika, Nilima Singh, Mini Krishnan, Sujata Shiven, Rakhshanda Jalil, Nandita Das, Akhil Katyal, Paul Zacharia, Volga, Arjun Deo Charan, Waman Kendre, A J Thomas, Manisha Kulshreshtha, Yatindra Mishra, and M K Raina.
    On March 8, the academy will felicitate 23 winners of the Sahitya Akademi Award at a ceremony that will be addressed by noted English playwright Mahesh Dattani.
    This year's 'Samvatsar Lecture' will be delivered by English writer Upamanyu Chatterjee on the topic of 'Some Things to Talk About' on March 9.
    On March 10, Sahitya Akademi Award winners Gagan Gill (Hindi), K Jayakumar (Malayalam), Sameer Tanti (Assamese), A R Venkatachalapathy (Tamil) and Dileep Jhaveri (Gujarati) will interact with other eminent writers and scholars, including Anjum Sharma, P Krishnanunni, Dinkar Kumar, D I Aravindan and Kamal Vora, respectively.
    A three-day national seminar on the festival theme will be organised from March 10. The inaugural session will be addressed by Bengali scholar and translator Sukanta Chaudhuri and keynote address will be delivered by English writer Makarand Paranjape.
    "In this seminar, discussions on different forms of Indian literature will be held, including ancient Indian literature, translations, drama, dharma literature, women's writing, poetry, bhakti literature and dalit writing," K Sreenivasarao, secretary of Sahitya Akademi, said in a press conference.
    Some of the writers and thinkers to attend the national seminar include Chittaranjan Tripathy, Sayantan Dasgupta, C Rajendran, Indrani Sanyal, Seema Sharma, Malashri Lal, Jay Saha, Sudha Seshayyan, and T S Krishnan.
    The academy will also observe birth centenary of Hindi playwright Mohan Rakesh, and Malayalam playwright Omcherry N N Pillai with discussions on their writings.
    The six-day festival will also put a spotlight on writings from the Northeast, tribal regions and LGBTQ community through panel discussions, writers and poets’ meets, and book readings.
    Children’s writers, young writers, short story writers and writers of women literature will also be part of separate panel discussions and meets.
    Other writers and poets who will take part in the literature festival include Jerry Pinto, Agni Roy, Badri Narayan, Ami Upadhyay, Baliram N Gaikwad, Ashok Chakradhar, Amarjit Singh Grewal, Jwishri Boro, Abhay K, and Chandra Prakash Deval.
    Cultural performances by artistes like flautist Rakesh Chaurasia, vocalist Nalini Joshi, and Fouzia Dastango and Ritesh Yadav will be organised during the festival.
    The festival will take place in the Rabindra Bhawan Lawns, Kamani Auditorium, Art Galleries of Lalit Kala Akademi and Sahitya Akademi Auditoriums.
    The festival will come to an end on March 12.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)