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From mushairas, Bollywood to Booker winner: Lucknow becomes a hub for literary lovers
Literary calendar is packed with upcoming events including the Kaushala Literature Festival, Metaphor Lucknow Litfest, Repertwahr Festival and Kabir Festival.
Literature festivals, along with book readings and launch sessions, are the flavour of the season. Following a wave of book festivals, the city recently witnessed the fifth edition of Abhivyakti, the annual festival organised by the HQ Central Command, alongside several dedicated book sessions.
Now, the calendar is packed with upcoming events including the Kaushala Literature Festival, Metaphor Lucknow Litfest, Repertwahr Festival, and Kabir Festival. These events will host a multitude of sessions dedicated to authors, poets, and literary figures, complemented by cultural programmes.
Metaphor Lucknow Litfest
This year’s festival is focused on the major restorations undertaken in Lucknow at places like the iconic La Martiniere College and the centuries-old Munshi Nawal Kishor Press. A session on the same will be held with Vandana Sehgal and Carlyle McFarland. This year's festival will be held at Le Press on December 13 and 14.
This year’s International Booker Prize-winning poet, Bhanu Mushtaq, will receive the Ram Advani Award.
The festival’s founder, Kanak Rekha Chauhan, says, “We will have celebrated author late Yashpal’s son, Anand Yashpal, doing a session. Filmmaker Sudhir Mishra will be in conversation with actor Atul Tiwari on new literature. Zindagi Gulzar Hai author Yatindra Mishra with author Satya Saran will do a session. Chandra Shekar Verma will read excerpts from his legendary father, Bhagwati Charan Verma’s work. Hazaron Khawaishen Aisi author Dr Anisur Rehman will also do a session.”
Besides this, there will be Ismat Chugtai’s Qissgoi by Ayesha Ayub, Dastaan-e-Kafi by Himanshu Bajpai, baitbaazi by Karam Girls College students, and more. The Women Premier League’s Lucknow Warriroz team owner, Jinesha Sharma, will add a flavour of cricket with a few players, and actors like Aahana Kumar will add cinematic glamour to the festival.
“We are still in talks to get some celebrated names. Besides, a lot of young popular influencers and local talent will be a part of the festival,” adds Kanak.
Koshala Literature Festival
Organiser Prashant Singh says, “We have international, Indian, as well as local authors, including some celebrities, who will take part in the festival.”
The three-day festival will open at UP Darshan Park on November 27. “This year’s line-up includes Ghazala Wahab, Manjari Chaturvedi, Anuja Chandramouli, Alka Pande, Koral Dasgupta, Neha Dixit, Jyotsna Mohan, Mehak Jamal, Jayant Krishna, Taha Ahmad, Maroof Culmen, Asma Hussain, Vaibhav Vishal, Muzaffar Ali, Kaveree Bamzai, Akshat Gupta, Rajit Kapour, Nishi Pandey, Ajay Jain, Sharad Bindal, and Tigmanshu Dhulia,” he adds.
The festival will feature a mushaira with Wasim Barelvi, Azhar Iqbal, Hina Rizvi Haidar, and Farhat Ehsas. Cultural performances will include Shaam-e-Sufiyana with Vidya Shah and Monica de la Fuente, Sujoy Ghosh, a tribute to singer Hemant Kumar by Ritesh Ranjan Sahai, Ajai Jain, Sagnik Sen, and Anubha Sen, and a qawwali by Chugge Khan’s group.
Book events
A host of author sessions have already taken place in the state capital this month. “In November itself, we hosted authors such as MJ Akbar, Archana Mehrotra, Vipul Varshney, Dinesh Gupta, Nitin Seth, and Lt Col Sanjeev Malik at our bookstore. In this season, we usually witness a lot of events around books and literature happening, and the growth can be seen by the host of events that are taking place,” says Manav Prakash of Universal Booksellers.
