3rd Karachi Literature Festival set to begin on Feb 11
Ammar Shahbazi
Karachi: The biggest literary event of the year, the annual Karachi Literature Festival, is set to begin on 11th February 2012 at the Carlton Hotel, DHA, with a galaxy of internationally renowned authors to attend the much-hyped litfest.
This is the third time the festival is being consecutively held, which makes it arguably the most important annual event of its kind to take place in Karachi. The two-day festival is organised by the Oxford University Press and British Council.
In the last two years, the size and scope of the festival has visibly doubled, attracting booklovers and literary connoisseurs from across the globe. The tentative programme schedule for 2012 seems far more happening than the previous years.
The first day of the festival seems to be the most star-studded, featuring conversations with Hanif Kureishi and Shobha De, along with William Dalrymple.“The idea behind this event is to celebrate the rich literary past of the city. Be it Urdu, Sindhi or English, Karachi has always been a hub of literary activities in the past,” said Asif Farrukhi, one of the organisers of the festival.
“This year, our scope is far too wide, we kept detailed sessions on socio-political issues, which were missing in previous years”, he added.
The event will include sessions with Pakistani authors who write in English like Mohammed Hanif, Bina Shah and Muniza Shamsie. “Pakistanis who are writing in English today have managed to attract a following in the West. In Pakistan, they do have an important audience but I think we can certainly expand their scope through events like this,” said Farukkhi.
One of the important features of the event this year is the galaxy of internationally renowned authors the festival has managed to attract. Oscar-nominated Hanif Kureishi of ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’ fame is expected to attend the event along with Scottish historian William Dalrymple, whose book ‘The White Mughals’ has been hailed as one of the greatest text on the British colonial rule in India.
Shobah De, one of the best-selling “chick-lit” novelists from India, is also attending the event with writer and broadcaster Victoria Schofield. This year the audience will have a tough time choosing between sessions as the paucity of time has forced organizers to conduct a number ‘important’ sessions simultaneously, which will only add more excitement to the two-day action-filled festival.
Source: The News
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