The Kalinga Literary Festival 2023 to Begin Today

The KLF, known for its socially conscious themes, will feature speakers who will discuss a variety of subjects.

on Feb 24, 2023

The biennial Kalinga Literary Festival (KLF), which will take place from February 24-26 in Odisha's Bhubaneswar, will bring together around 500 speakers from a wide range of nationalities in the domains of literature, cinema, media, and politics to discuss the topic of "India and the World."

The ninth edition of the KLF will feature speakers from ten nations, including Nepal, Sri Lanka, Japan, the UK, Italy, South Africa, Austria, and more than 25 languages.

The literary festival debuted in 2013 and will also feature winners of prestigious prizes, including the Nobel, Booker, International Booker, and Sahitya Akademi. Since then, almost 2500 lecturers and entertainers have participated in the festival.

"Geetanjali Shree, winner of the international Booker prize, will join us. We consider it a great honor to have Sahitya Akademi and Nobel Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi among our ranks. Living legends and youth icons such as Sitakanta Mohapatra, Pratibha Ray, Ramakanta Rath, Jayanta Mohapatra, Sanjeev Sanyal, Ranjit Hoskote, Rakhshanda Jalil, Shekhar Pathak, Daya Dissanayake, Rajesh Singh, Sachchidanand Joshi, Alka Saraogi, Vyomesh Shukla, Geet Chaturvedi "said KLF's founding director Rashmi Ranjan Parida.

The KLF, known for its socially conscious themes, will feature speakers who will discuss a variety of subjects, including climate justice, great female authors and artists who focused on the female voice and identity, crime fiction, memoirs, translations, poetry, economics, tech morality, artificial intelligence, the global financial crisis, cutting-edge science, art, and photography, as well as health and medicine.

The Kalinga Literary Festival's main subject for this year is "India and the World."

The festival occurs when India has intensified diplomatic relations with other nations per the "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" ideal, which served as the foundation for Indian culture.

The "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" concept advocates the coexistence of all peoples, all nations, and all social, political, and cultural systems to promote global unity, mutual enrichment, and progress.

In the modern world, the term "global culture" is frequently used interchangeably with the Indic worldview, and this is not the correct equation. Western colonialism, in particular, has demonstrated how the enlightenment of the west concept was applied to enslavement and appropriation.

The event will feature the "Marga" and "Deshi" traditions to exhibit India's folklore and linguistic variety.

Several aspects of the relationships between literature, freedom, republican principles, cultural variety, and social equality will also be covered during the three-day festival.

During the KLF, more than 30 new books and monographs will be published. The KLF speakers and delegates will have the chance to take part in the "Mystic Walk" historical tour as well as the "Plantation" and "Mystic Mic" events.

Also, the Kalinga Art Festival will be conducted concurrently to provide artists with a venue to display their skills and relate their work to the festival's main topic. It will show the results of 60 Indian and Odishan artists.