All set for literature gala starting on February 5

The seventh Karachi Literature Festival will feature 225 Pakistani speakers and 38 from overseas; there will be 100 sessions and 21 books are scheduled to be launched

Karachi

The three-day Karachi Literature Festival will get going on Friday, February 5, with a wide variety of literary and cultural programmes at the seaside Beach Luxury Hotel. 

The festival, seventh in a series since 2010, brings together international and Pakistani authors to promote reading and showcases writing at its best.

Karachiites and Pakistanis at large will have another chance (the seventh in a row) to feel proud of the tremendous literary talent that lies hidden in the Pakistani diaspora.

Announcing this at the Arts Council on Tuesday evening,  Ameena Saiyid, managing director, Oxford University Press (OUP), Pakistan, said that the festival would feature 225 Pakistani speakers and 38 from overseas. There will be a hundred sessions and 21 books are scheduled to be launched. Eight countries are to be represented in all.

The keynote speakers at the opening will be the world-renowned Pakistani scientist, Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, and noted poetess Fehmida Riaz.

The keynote speakers at the closing will be Ziauddin Sardar and Rakhshanda Jalil.

Among the noted authors and speakers will be Amar Jaleel, Anwar Masood, Faryal Ali Gohar, Kishwar Naheed, Mehtab Akbar Rashdi and Tahira Syed.

From among the celebrities from India will be Anupam Kher, Saif Mahmood and Barkha Dutt.

From the US will be Barbara Metcalf, Neelofer Abbasi and Sadia Shepherd.

From the UK, we have Mirza Waheed, Ziauddin Sardar and Kamila Shamsie.

From Germany, there are Christoph Peters and Steffen Kopetzky. From Italy there are Andrea Berrini and Sabiana Paoli.

Apart from literary issues, there will be those pertaining to politics, like Indo-Pak ties and socio- economic topics like “Tharparkar: desert woes”.

There will also be prizes for authorship. German Consul-General in town Rainer Schmiedchen announced the details of the KLF Peace Prize offered by the German Consulate-General and the Embassy of Germany.

The 3,000-euro prize is awarded to the best book on inter-religious and international relations, books that promote international harmony and foster peace and amity the world over. It will be presented on Saturday, February 6.

Two German authors will also be coming. Apart from this, the Coca Cola prize for non-fiction was announced by Fahd Qadir of Coca Cola, and the Embassy of France prize for fiction will also be presented.

The incoming deputy head of mission at the UK Deputy High Commission, Stephen Crossman, in his speech, highlighted the indispensible reading habit and hoped that people would attend in large numbers. He congratulated the organisers of the Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) for their untiring efforts to make the endeavour a success.