After a gap of three years because of the Covid pandemic, the fourth edition of the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters (MBIFL 2023) will be held from 2 to 5 February 2023 at Kanakakunnu Palace in Thiruvananthapuram.
Starting in the year 2018, the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters is a celebration of letters and ideas. After three successful editions in 2018, 19 & 20, the festival was put on hold as the world came to a standstill because of the Covid pandemic. The fourth edition of MBIFL under the theme ‘Shadows of history, Lights of the future’, makes a comeback at a time as Mathrubhumi celebrates its centenary year, the MBIFL website stated.
“At this time, this festival becomes a contemplative platform to examine a journey emerging from the shadows and reaching the light,” MBIFL stated. The shadows being the experiences, the learnings, and the realities of the past while the light is the illuminating wisdom and imagination guiding humankind with new ideas and perspectives to the future through literature, art and culture, politics, technology, science, gender, and more, it stated.
Nobel laureate Abdulrazakh Gurnah and Booker Prize winner Shehan Karunatilaka are scheduled to attend the MBIFL. The festival, which aims to take forward the legacy of literature, will include vibrant panel discussions, interviews, debates, memories, book festivals, open forums, and book readings, the Mathrubhumi portal said.
“A galaxy of universally renowned writers and speakers will grace this iteration, including last year’s Nobel laureate Abdul Razak Gurna and Booker Prize winner Shehan Karunathilake, from neighboring Sri Lanka,” media reports quoted Sabin Iqbal, festival curator, as saying.
M V Shreyams Kumar, chairman of MBIFL said, “Being in the forefront of all progressive movements in our state, we deemed it incumbent on us to celebrate the role of letters in contributing to the moral arc of a nation, by conceiving the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters.”
