Bangalore joins Jaipur, gears up for Literature Festival

Bangalore, Nov 7: Bangalore's bibliophiles and writers are an excited lot. On the lines of famous Jaipur Literature Festival, India's IT hub inaugurated the 1st edition of Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF) at Jayamahal Palace Hotel on Friday, Dec 7. The three-day-long festival will end on Sunday.

Announcing the festival earlier, author and organiser of BLF Vikram Sampath said, "We'll play host to a large number of national and international authors."

"It's a young festival, not only in terms of people putting it together but the people it's reaching out to," said veteran writer Shashi Deshpande, an adviser to the fest.

BLF 2012 will have over fifty writers, including Ruskin Bond, Manu Joseph, UR Ananthamurthy, Bhanu Mushtaq, Shehan Karunatilaka, Shashi Tharoor, Gulzar, Javed Akhtar, Chandrashekhara Kambara and Chetan Bhagat. Besides talks, workshops and interactive sessions, there will be panel discussions on different genres and topics such as writing on India, future of Indian publishing, etc.

Everyday, the festival will showcase various cultural hues of Karnataka.

"We will showcase the classical, folk and popular culture of Karnataka everyday evening through programmes like a Carnatic classical instrumental ensemble," informed Sampath.

The festival will have book releases events. Food courts, cafes and close to 20,000 books, in addition to sessions with eminent authors, are on offer over the weekend fest.

The festival has generated lot of interest among Bangaloreans.

"We had a simple online registration on our website www.bangaloreliteraturefestival.org and have already had close to 2,500 registrations. So we do hope many Bangaloreans make the Jayamahal Palace their retreat this weekend," said Sampath.

OneIndia News