8th Kolkata Literature Festival is to be inaugurated on March 11

on Mar 11, 2022

The 8th edition of the Kolkata Literature Festival is making its return after almost two years on Friday, March 11. It’s a two-day event gorged with cultural festivities consisting of literature, dance, music, and tributes to luminaries. The 45th International Kolkata is already a huge success, in terms of sales and footfall. The follow-up event of the book fair is this literature festival. It will be inaugurated on Friday by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay and will be hosted at the SBI Auditorium on the Book Fair’s premises in Salt Lake's Central Park. As always, the festival will celebrate art in all its forms, with creative minds from diverse walks of life coming together to explore literature, cinema, mythology, history, current affairs, and politics. The 75th anniversary of India’s freedom will be commemorated in a session. There are sessions on 250 years of Raja Rammohun Roy, 150 years of Rishi Aurobindo, and Ashutosh Mukhopadhyay whose centenary just went by and whose novels have been made into memorable films like Deep Jwele Jai, Kal Tumi Aleya, and Saat Pake Bandha. The festival will also reflect on how the pandemic has affected children’s reading habits and schooling, with principals Seema Sapru and John Bagul joining Pandob Goenda creator Sashthipada Chattopadhyay and others. The last session will be in Bengali on the future of Bengali literature. Pracheta Gupta and Srijato will be among the authors to be in conversation with publisher Tridib Chatterjee. Festival director Sujata Sen has arranged for live music at the start of each day. All sessions will be streamed live on Facebook and YouTube.