Sahitya Akademi's 'Festival of Letters' to begin from Feb 24

The Sahitya Akademi will organise its annual 'Festival of Letters' from February 24 to 29, the National Academy of Letters announced on Tuesday. The event will be inaugurated by eminent Hindi writer Mannu Bhandari at the Rabindra Bhawan lawns here.

Opening with an exhibition of the Akademi's activities in 2019, a formal inaugural session of the event will be addressed by linguist and scholar Anvita Abbi. The session will also be attended by Chandrashekhar Kambar, president Sahitya Akademi, and K Sreenivasarao, secretary, Sahitya Akademi.

The six-day festival will host the All India Tribal Writers conference and North-Eastern and Northern Writers' Meet this time. On the second day, the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Awards 2019 will be bestowed upon writers in 23 Indian languages.

The awards, announced in December last, will be given to Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in English and Nand Kishore Acharya in Hindi, among others. The award ceremony will be attended by famous poet and lyricist Gulzar.

The annual lecture 'Samvatsar Lecture' will be given by former president Pranab Mukherjee on February 26. The national seminar on the topic 'Regionality, Environment and Literature' will be addressed by English writer Amit Chaudhuri and Kannada writer S L Bhyrappa.

The festival will also witness panel discussions on topics such as 'Present Scenario of Playwriting', 'Art of Translation: Cultural Responsibility' and 'Media and Literature: Information and Sensibility'. The Festival of Letters will also see the All India LGBTQ Poets' Meet, which will be inaugurated by English poet Hoshang Merchant.

PTI MAH SRY

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