Writers’ block
21 Feb 2013 12:58 AM GMT
It was a feast for voracious readers and the literature-lovers of the Capital recently when Sahitya Akademi organised the Sahitya Utsav (Festival of Letters). It gave readers a chance to interact with their favourite authors .
The festival represented 24 regional languages, including English and the aim was to reach out to people from different age groups. It also recognised and awarded 24 authors who write in different languages with the highest literary recognition accorded by the government of India.
Authors present at the Writers’ Meet were Chandana Goswami (Assamese), Subrata Mukhopadhyay (Bengali), Guneswar Musahary (Bodo), Jeet Thayil (English), Chandrakant Amritlal Topiwala (Gujarati), Chandrakant Devtale (Hindi), HS Shiva Prakash (Kannada), Makhan Lal Kanwal (Kashmiri), Shefalika Verma (Maithili), K. Satchidanandan (Malayalam), Jodha Chandra Sanasam (Manipuri), Jayant Pawar (Marathi), Udai Thulung (Nepali), Gourahari Das (Oriya), Darshan Buttar (Punjabi), Aidan Singh Bhati (Rajasthani), Ramjee Thakur (Sanskrit), Gangadhar Hansda (Santali), D Selvaraj (Tamil), Peddibhotla Subbaramaiah (Telugu), Krishan Kumar Toor (Urdu). Indra Vaswani (Sindhi) and Bal Krishan Bhaura (Dogri) have been awarded posthumously.
At the annual five-day event, annual seminar titled Literature & Other Arts, photo-cum-book exhibition, writers’ meet, Samvatsar lectures, live performances, Spin-a-Tale, Young Poet’s Meet and Poetry on Canvas were also organised.
Award winners held an interactive session on Tuesday. They spoke about their books and shared personal experiences.
At the Samvatsar lecture, poet, novelist and critic Padmashree Bhalachandra Nemade spoke on the topic ‘How much space does an Indian writer need?’ He pointed out the literary break in Indian writing and the hypocrisy connected with the word ‘Indianness’.
‘An interactive session helps build a connection with your reader and for regional language authors it is a great oppprtunity to talk about their books. The communication between the authors themselves is very helpful,’ said Jayant Pawar, who won an award for his writings in Marathi.
‘The festival will be taken out of the auditorium where usually paper presentations and discussions take place. Now the whole of Rabindra Bhavan premises will wear a festive look and the aesthetic ambience of Meghdoot for hosting sessions related to dance, music etc will add colours to it. The presence of painters, poets and performing artistes will enliven the environment,’ said Dr Sreenivasarao, secretary, Sahitya Akademi.
The themes that will be covered in the seminar include Literature as Performance where various papers will be presented on poetry as performances, translations as performances and also few sessions on literature and cinema, literature and media, literature and theatre, painting, music, dance and the question of aesthetic. The festival had events designed to capture the interest of grown-ups as well as kids and was a literary delight.
The festival represented 24 regional languages, including English and the aim was to reach out to people from different age groups. It also recognised and awarded 24 authors who write in different languages with the highest literary recognition accorded by the government of India.
Authors present at the Writers’ Meet were Chandana Goswami (Assamese), Subrata Mukhopadhyay (Bengali), Guneswar Musahary (Bodo), Jeet Thayil (English), Chandrakant Amritlal Topiwala (Gujarati), Chandrakant Devtale (Hindi), HS Shiva Prakash (Kannada), Makhan Lal Kanwal (Kashmiri), Shefalika Verma (Maithili), K. Satchidanandan (Malayalam), Jodha Chandra Sanasam (Manipuri), Jayant Pawar (Marathi), Udai Thulung (Nepali), Gourahari Das (Oriya), Darshan Buttar (Punjabi), Aidan Singh Bhati (Rajasthani), Ramjee Thakur (Sanskrit), Gangadhar Hansda (Santali), D Selvaraj (Tamil), Peddibhotla Subbaramaiah (Telugu), Krishan Kumar Toor (Urdu). Indra Vaswani (Sindhi) and Bal Krishan Bhaura (Dogri) have been awarded posthumously.
At the annual five-day event, annual seminar titled Literature & Other Arts, photo-cum-book exhibition, writers’ meet, Samvatsar lectures, live performances, Spin-a-Tale, Young Poet’s Meet and Poetry on Canvas were also organised.
Award winners held an interactive session on Tuesday. They spoke about their books and shared personal experiences.
At the Samvatsar lecture, poet, novelist and critic Padmashree Bhalachandra Nemade spoke on the topic ‘How much space does an Indian writer need?’ He pointed out the literary break in Indian writing and the hypocrisy connected with the word ‘Indianness’.
‘An interactive session helps build a connection with your reader and for regional language authors it is a great oppprtunity to talk about their books. The communication between the authors themselves is very helpful,’ said Jayant Pawar, who won an award for his writings in Marathi.
‘The festival will be taken out of the auditorium where usually paper presentations and discussions take place. Now the whole of Rabindra Bhavan premises will wear a festive look and the aesthetic ambience of Meghdoot for hosting sessions related to dance, music etc will add colours to it. The presence of painters, poets and performing artistes will enliven the environment,’ said Dr Sreenivasarao, secretary, Sahitya Akademi.
The themes that will be covered in the seminar include Literature as Performance where various papers will be presented on poetry as performances, translations as performances and also few sessions on literature and cinema, literature and media, literature and theatre, painting, music, dance and the question of aesthetic. The festival had events designed to capture the interest of grown-ups as well as kids and was a literary delight.
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