India News | Tharoor, Pranab's Daughter Among Those Speaking at This Year's Kolkata Lit Fest
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Senior Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and ex-president Pranab Mukherjee's daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee are among the noted personalities who will take part in the three-day Kolkata Literature Festival (KLF) which will begin on January 26.
Kolkata, Jan 25 (PTI) Senior Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and ex-president Pranab Mukherjee's daughter Sharmistha Mukherjee are among the noted personalities who will take part in the three-day Kolkata Literature Festival (KLF) which will begin on January 26.
While Tharoor will discuss India's role in the present global scenario, Sharmistha will discuss her father's jottings during his long political career, the organisers said on Thursday.
The festival will be held alongside the ongoing International Kolkata Book Fair.
Among the others who will participate in the 18 sessions that will be held are filmmakers Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury and Goutam Ghose, celebrated RJ Mir and percussionist Bickram Ghosh.
The Samaresh Majumdar Smriti Samman will be conferred on Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay this year, Publishers and Booksellers Guild President Tridib Chatterjee said.
"The KLF will feature established and emerging Bengali authors, showcasing a diverse array of literary works, spanning both fiction and non-fiction genres," festival director Sujata Sen said.
A total of 68 writers from across the country and neighbouring Bangladesh will participate in the festival.
Special sessions will be held to pay tributes to writer Samaresh Basu, poet Nirendranath Chakraborty and director Mrinal Sen on their birth centenary.
The book fair, which began on January 18, recorded a footfall of 11 people and sales of books worth Rs 14 crore in the last seven days, the organisers said.
Last year, 26 lakh people visited the fair and books worth Rs 25.50 crore were sold, Publishers and Booksellers Guild executive committee member Apu Dey told PTI.
Even on the days when it rained, people turned up at the fair, and over the extended weekend of Republic Day, a greater attendance is expected, he said.
"Unlike in some other book fairs, fiction, non-fiction, short stories, essays and poems are among the most selling here. College and university books and those for competitive exams are also in demand, but they do not outpace the others," he added.
The organisers held a plantation drive on the fairground during the day. The programme was attended by West Bengal Pollution Control Board Chairman Kalyan Rudra.
The fair will continue till January 31.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)