Delhi’s very own literature festival!

It was a great delight for local book lovers to witness 2nd Delhi Literature Festival 2014, held in the city’s heart at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. The world of words, books and literati gathered at the festival which took place from February 7-9, 2014.

The Delhi Literature Festival was inaugurated by Dr Karan Singh, president ICCR in the presence of HE Bernhard Curabetz, the ambassador of Austria, Hamsa Moily, the poet and Dr T Meinya, member of parliament from North East. The Mahabharata’s Secrets written by Christopher C Doyle and published by Om Book International was also launched by the dignitaries present.

The festival started with a tribute to Rajendra Yadav, the most well-known writer in Hindi language and the pioneer of the Nayi Kahani Movement. Dr Nirmala Jain, a renowned critic; Ajit Kumar Chaudhary, writer in Hindi and Rachna Yadav, daughter of Rajendra Yadav and MD, Hans Publications touched upon the issues being faced by Hindi as a language and its literature in the contemporary times while going down the memory lane.

“This year we tried to include many different themes associated with literature and also international participation like Brazil and Iran. We saw participation of people from various age groups. This year we also moved to two venues to increase the number of sessions. And next year we’ll take a step forward in terms of both quality and quantity of sessions and try to include children’s literature, regional literature and several other pressing issues faced by the literary world,” said Supriya Suri, the festival director.

The second day of the festival started with the Civil Servants of India discussing their various ventures into creativity and writing followed by a session by Iranian artists sharing the history and art forms involved in Persian publishing. Illumination, decoration and calligraphy­—the three most important elements of it found great interest in the audience as they poured questions of all kinds on the artists.

The day also saw participation of literary critics like Dr Rakhshanda Jalil and Prof Harish Narang, a dramatic reading of an unpublished novel, Mutilator by Prajna Desai, a session to discuss the Indian politics by Tabrik C and participation of ambassadors of various countries like Brazil, Spain and Sri Lanka to discuss the works of Gladys Abankwa-Meier-Klodt, author of Delhi’s Diplomatic Domains.

Also, Somnath Bharti, minister of law, tourism, art & culture and administrative reforms, Govt. of Delhi was also present to launch the book The Holy Smoke, it’s a GODMAN written by Satish G Kashyap.

The Amphi theatre witnessed sessions on an array of topics.

–Smita Dwivedi