6th KLF starts on Feb 6

Karachi
The 6th three-day Karachi Literature Festival (KLF), a hallmark of Karachi’s intellectual scene, will kick off from February 6 and promises to be an intellectually fruitful event with 210 speakers, 173 from Pakistan and 37 from other countries.
Oxford University Press Pakistan managing director Ameena Saiyid, OBE, at the event’s curtain-raising press conference on Friday, said there would be 28 book launches and 85 sessions on various issues related to literature and the society.
The keynote speakers will be Nayantara Sahgal, daughter of Indian politician Vijay Lakshmi Pundit and niece of the late Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The other keynote speaker will be noted Pakistani literary Zehra Nigah.
Saiyid further said there would be three prizes for the best book category with the German consulate general in Karachi and the German embassy sponsoring the prize for a book promoting peace, the French consulate general in Karachi for fiction, and the Coca Cola Corporation for non-fiction.
Saiyid said at the first Karachi Literature Festival in 2010, there were only 5,000 visitors. In comparison, there were 70,000 in the one held last year. This year, she added, the turnout was likely to be close to 100,000.
In a lighter vein, she said the first literature festival in the region in Jaipur, India - just a few years before the first one in Karachi - had attracted only 70 visitors of whom 40 were Japanese tourists who had lost their way.
This certainly was not to denigrate the Indian festival but to highlight the smashing success the Pakistani festivals had been.
Another founder of the KLF, Dr Asif Aslam Farrukhi, said among other things, there would also be a session on the 100 years of Sindhi short story.
Arts Council general secretary Ahmed Shah said seemingly Karachi had been turned into a ghost town with people living in constant fear and no social activity but Ameena Saiyid’s her­culean effort in organising a cultural activity on such a large scale had given a lot of hope to the citizens.
Among the foreign organisations cooperating in holding the festival are the German embassy, the German consulate general in Karachi, the UK deputy high commission in Karachi, the Italian consulate general in Karachi; the Italian embassy, the Alliance Francais in Karachi and the French embassy.
German consul general Tilo Klinner said it was a real source of pride to be associated with the Karachi Literature Festival, an event that endorsed peace and harmony.
Italian consul general Giulio Iazeolla said before he came to Karachi to take up his assignment, he never could have imagined that the city could be the hub of such a large scale cultural and intellectual activity. Other speakers included ex-chairman Citizens-Police Liaison Committee Jamil Yusuf and Alliance Francais director Jean Chenin.