8th Karachi Literature festival to begin on February 10

Karachi: The 8^th edition of the Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) will begin from February 10^th, 2017 till February 12^th, 2017 and the venue will be the same, Beach Luxury Hotel.

This announcement was made by Ameena Saiyid, OBE, Managing Director, Oxford University Press (Pakistan), while addressing a press conference in this respect at the Arts Council on Tuesday afternoon.

Saiyid said that the festival will feature 136 Pakistani along with 40 international speakers from 10 states.

Internationally admired historian Ayesha Jalal and well-known Pakistani author Mustansir Hussain Tarrar will be the main speakers.

This festival would include panel discussions, interviews, mushairas, performing arts, literary awards, as well as the other relevant features.

Since 2017 marks the completion of 7 decades of independence of Pakistan, the theme of the festival would be a peek into the changing facets of the country through subjects as diverse as honour killings, teaching of history as well as climate change.

Some of the famous names participating include Arfa Sayeda Zehra, Amar Jalil, Fehmida Riaz, Zafar Hilaly, Victoria Schofield, and Zia Mohyuddin.

Among the famous personalities from outside Pakistan will be Shabnam from Bangladesh and American Roger Long, a biographer of the late Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan.

Among the large number of topics there would be Pakistani music: from raag to raagas; gender violence, religion, law along with power in Pakistan.

Referring to the achievement and popularity of the festival, Saiyid said that while the first literature festival in 2010 saw 5,000 visitors while the 7^th one in 2016 had 1, 75,000.

The prizes announced by her were: the KLF-Pepsi non-fiction prize; KLF-Getz Pharma Fiction Prize; KLF Peace Prize sponsored by the Consulate-General of Germany in Karachi; KLF-Infaq Foundation Urdu Literature Prize; and the Italy-Reads-Pakistan Award, funded by the Consulate-general of Italy in Karachi.

The 3 books nominated for the KLF-Pepsi Non-Fiction Prize are: ‘Surkh Salam: Communist Politics and Class Activism in Pakistan” by Kamran Asdar Ali’; ‘A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama of Muslim Origins in South Asia’ by Manan Ahmed Asif; and ‘The Raj at War’ by Yasmin Khan.

The prize carries an amount of Rs 3, 00,000/-.

The supporters this year include the Consulate-General of Germany in Karachi, the US Consulate-General, the Manchester Literature Festival, the British Council, the British Deputy-High Commission, Consulate-General of Switzerland, Karachi, American Institute of Pakistan Studies, Consulate-General of Italy as well as Goethe-Institute.

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