VoW International Literature Festival

The fifth edition of the Valley of Words (Vow), 2021 was held successfully across five cities in India. The event was flagged off from New Delhi on the 9-10 October with the first session on Military History and Strategy at USI. There were over 45 sessions which revolved around the 1971 War of Bangladesh which re-shaped the history of the sub-continent including book launches. The fest moved on to II and III tier cities such the historical city of Vadodara where the prestigious National Academy for Indian Railway which played host to the Hindi Fiction and Non-Fiction vertical on 22-23 October.

Coming November, Kolkata witnessed a two-day cerebral outpour in the English and Non-Fiction category from 6-7 November along with half a dozen book launches including poetry. Hyderabad, MCHRDI hosted Valley of Word team from 13-14 November where author’s shortlisted under the English Translation and Young Writing for Adults category joined us virtually as well as physically.

The last leg of the festival was held in Dehradun from the 19-21 November where we had a day dedicated to Science and Technology with session revolving around the History of IT, Astronomy and Ancient medicine. On the 19 November the PFC and VOW 2021 winners list was announced by the festival director, Dr Sanjeev Chopra, shared on all our social media handles.

On 20 November authors from the Writing for Children joined us virtually where school students enthralled them with short clips of bringing the shortlisted books alive. Followed by a stimulating session on Hindi Translation or Anoovaad with translators and their books shortlisted under the category. Interspersed with sessions were acceptance speeches of all our eight winners over two days.

The last day was dedicated to National and School level debates on the 21^st of November. The finalists joined in virtually to be judged by our esteem judges. Interspersed with the two debates was The Valley of Words, “VOX Populi – The Parliamentarians Debate,” In this session eight Parliamentarians from different parties engaged in a discussion “Delimitation – Way Forward for better representative engagement with democratic apparatus.

VoW 2021 Book Award Winners –

The longlists for this year became a reading guide for many, and were critically acclaimed across the board. The Shortlists formed the basis of the sessions themselves this year, with the selected authors joining in to various venues for thought-provoking conversations both physically and virtually in this fest.