Sahitya Akademi announces the celebration of ‘Sahityotsav’

Sahitya Akademi, the National Academy of Letters, India, is completing 70 years this year and to commemorate this occasion, the ‘Sahityotsav’, celebrated every year by the Akademi, is being celebrated this time as the world’s largest literary festival.

K Sreenivasrao, Secretary, Sahitya Akademi, informed that more than 1100 renowned writers and scholars are participating in more than 190 sessions and more than 175 languages of the country will also be represented in it. Governors of three states - Arif Mohammed Khan (Kerala), Bishwabhusan Harichandan (Chhattisgarh) and C V Anand Bose (West Bengal) will also participate in the festival.

The ‘Festival of Letters’, organised in more than 190 sessions, will begin with the exhibition of the major activities of the Akademi throughout the previous year. The highlight of the festival will be the presentation ceremony of the Sahitya Akademi Awards 2023, which will be held on March 12 at 5:30 pm in the Kamani Auditorium. The chief guest of the awards presentation ceremony will be Pratibha Rai, the distinguished Odia writer. The prestigious ‘Samvatsar’ lecture will be delivered by renowned Urdu writer and lyricist Gulzar on March 13 at 6.30 pm at the Meghdoot open theatre.

On March 11, Sahitya Akademi Fellows will also be felicitated. Apart from the regular programmes like multilingual poetry reading and short story reading, Yuva Sahiti, Asmita, ‘Purvottari’, panel discussions on ‘Bhakti Literature of India’ and many more events will take place. There will also be other panel discussions and symposia on various topics like ‘Cultural Heritage of India’, ‘Science Fiction in Indian Languages’, ‘Ethics and Literature’, ‘Biographies in Indian Languages’, ‘Literature and Social Movements’ and ‘Indian Literature Abroad’. The topic of this time’s national seminar is ‘Post-Independence Indian Literature’.