With 28 planned sessions ranging in topics from history, language, politics, or even just writing, the sessions are being held over three days.[break]
Suvani Singh, festival director, says, “We’ve been preparing for it for over a year! Most of it was talking about the structure of the festival and the last three months were spent to plan the actual events.”
Talking about how these topics were chosen, Suvani says, “Sanjeev Uprety and Manjushree Thapa were crucial in identifying the key issues that would be relevant to Nepal. But keeping in mind that this would be an international festival they came up with six topics and suggested names for us to contact. From there, we got additional suggestions and we went to plan 28 in all!”
According to the official website, litjatra.com, “[The authors] will take part in readings, workshops and hold thematic discussions on various topics pertaining to Nepal and South Asia in both socio-political and literary contexts.” Suvani also mentioned that a lot of the planning and ideas came from the participating authors themselves.
“I’m really excited about a lot of the sessions,” she says, and mentions that she is especially looking forward to sessions such as “Maithili: A Literary History” with author Rajendra Bimel; “Sumnima to Sakambari: Female Characters in Modern Nepali Novels” with writer Krishna Dharabasi (Krishna Prasad Bhattarai), writer Sudha Tripathi, and author Nayan Raj Pandey. She is also excited about discussions with journalist Mohammed Hanif, and Editor in Chief of Tehelka Tarun Tejpal.
Even if you are not bookish, Suvani says there are perks to attending the festival. “For non-readers, we definitely don’t have a culture of listening, interaction and discussion. Or even if we do, such interactions happen on such small scales. But it’s a matter of meeting interesting people. And if you can meet new people, you’ll have fun!”
All events will take place in the Patan Durbar Square complex. For more information and for the full schedule of events, visit litjatra.com.
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