The Hindu reports that the Hyderabad Literary Festival (HLF) is adopting the digital medium and is set to take place in a virtual format from 22-24 January 2021. Although this is a setback for another litfest due to the ongoing pandemic, the literary and cultural events aim to gather a wider audience using the digital route.
HLF has announced its first list of speakers, including Aakash Singh, Kobad Ghandy, NK Singh, Parmesh Shahani, Devdutt Pattanaik, Amitav Ghosh, and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The popular literary event has four directors, namely, professor T Vijay Kumar, Amita Desai, Ajay Gandhi, and Kinnera Murthy – who have conducted many online webinars and interactive sessions during the Covid-19 lockdown for the Hyderabad lit fest. Going entirely online was a natural progression for the organizers.
The theme for this year’s HLF will be ‘language in focus.’ There will not be any parallel sessions in this year’s event in an attempt to evade digital fatigue. The festival will have a special segment hosted by music director Ramachary and radio anchor Jyotsna to pay homage to singer SP Balasubramaniam.
The detailed schedule for the 2021 event will be announced soon on www.hydlitfest.org. The regular segments of the fair like Kaavya Dhara – poetry stream, Nanha Nukkad – children’s events, Stage Talks, cultural events, workshops, and art exhibitions will all be held virtually.
The pandemic has forced many lit fests and book fairs to go online, including the recently concluded Bangalore Literature Festival and the Military Literature Festival, which had live-streamed book readings and interactive sessions. Last month, Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) announced its much-awaited first list of speakers with plans to have a completely virtual event scheduled on the last two weekends of February.
Several fairs have been canceled in the past year, such as the Paris Book Fair and the London Book Fair, due to the second wave of Coronavirus pandemic raging across Europe. The Frankfurt Bookfair was held as a virtual event with substantial support from the German government. However, the pandemic has taken a toll on the trade fair industry, and it may take several years for these events to recover.
Guwahati Book Fair goes live
Meanwhile, the Guwahati Book Fair or Granthamela from 30 December 2020 to 10 January 2021 in the Northeastern state of Assam was held live and attracted perhaps as many as a hundred thousand visitors over the twelve days. The fair that went on till the late evenings had all the ingredients that make Indian book fairs enjoyable – politicians, authors, musicians, and numerous seminars, awards, and performances. Although Assam has a population of over 34 million, the active Coronavirus cases are relatively low at about 1,600. During the week of 8 January, there was a 0% increase in the number of active cases.
