Kerala Literature Festival 2020: Shashi Tharoor, Benyamin among speakers at fifth edition

From 16 to 19 January 2020, many venues along Calicut’s beach are set to come alive during the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF), which boasts of a line-up that includes Perumal Murugan, Anand Teltumbde, Benyamin, Francisco Lopez Seivane and Angel Lopez Soto. The fifth edition of the festival will also see Rajdeep Sardesai, Shashi Tharoor, William Dalrymple and Tony Joseph addressing audiences. Poets Cheran, S Patmanathan, Chris Agee, Ari Sitas, Beita, Salma, Hemant Divate, Sachin Ketkar, Subhro Bandopadhyay, Arundhati Subramaniam and Jerry Pinto will be present this year. Environmentalists Madhav Gadgil and Vandana Shiva, and many from the art world like Alka Pande, Subodh Kerkar and Kannan Sundaram are also part of the speaker line-up. [caption id=“attachment_7735101” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  The theme of the fifth edition of the Kerala Literature Festival is the environment and climate change[/caption] The theme of the festival this year is the environment and climate change. “Gandhi and the environment, the Gadgil Report in the context of Kerala’s floods, organic agriculture and the impact of rock mining, deforestation and sand mining on our environment are some of the themes that will be analysed and debated,” says festival director K Satchidanandan. Some of the other subjects which will be discussed at the festival’s various sessions are the entry of women into Sabarimala, the Ayodhya verdict, and the emergence of community dialects and tribal tongues as literary languages. “The new short story, new takes on Don Quixote, the novels of Miguel Delibes, cartography, new discoveries about early Indians, robotics and the future of mankind, the role of social media in opinion formation, music and caste, and literature in the time of trauma are some of the themes being discussed at the festival,” Satchidanandan adds. Spain, the guest nation of the festival, will be represented by a collective of 20 artists, writers and journalists. The language in focus for this edition is Tamil. Satchidanandan says that apart from participants hailing from China, Slovenia, Egypt and South Africa, the festival also boasts of the addition of new programme formats: debates, straight talks, book discussions and readers’ sessions – and a 10-minute slot for audience members to introduce original ideas. A performance by a famous Flamenco dancer, music by German Diaz and dance by Monica Rodriquez are some of the other events to look out for. One of the festival’s draws are fireside chats. “Fireside chats will be informal discussions on current topics of interest, and will also include some readings. The cultural performances planned include Sufi music, Spanish music and an open festival of films from around the world,” Satchidanandan informs. Carnatic concerts, puppet shows, theatre and performances by rock bands are also part of the schedule.