Kalinga Literary Festival to ponder on contemporary forms of literature

Bhubaneswar: The Kalinga Literary Festival (KLF), designed to promote the participation of young minds in art, culture and creative dialogue, is back with its 5th edition to educate, provoke and entertain as well.

This year's theme will focus on how equality, equity and humanity have been presented, portrayed and picturised in contemporary forms of literature and art.

Several personalities including Pavan Verma, Nirupama Rao, Vinod Dua, Amish Tripathy, Rahat Indori, Nilamadhav Panda, Shobha De and Vijaylakshmi Chhabra will be in smart city Bhubaneswar for the three-day event starting on June 8.

There will be more than 250 writers, poets, artists and performers dwelling on several issues ranging from youth to inclusion, transgender to equality, women to equity, and governance to justice, said Rashmi Ranjan Parida, the founder director of KLF.

Four awards in literature will be conferred on the occasion. These are the Kalinga Sahitya Sanman (for a distinguished writer in Odia), Kalinga International Literary Award (for a writer in any global language), Kalinga Karubaki Literary Award (for Odia women writers) and the Kalinga Literary Youth Award (30 districts of Odisha).

Parida believes that literary festivals need to have a contemporary focus which would expand and strengthen the democratic space for dialogue and dissent to help facilitate inclusive policy-making.

Artists, performers and writers from the Philippines will join to add a Southeast Asian colour to the function.

There will be a cultural programme to showcase Odisha's art, culture and literature on each day of the festival. Among others, a mushaira by Rahat Indori and team will be a star attraction.