A Big Leap,literally

Festival director Anil Dharker recalls that last year,they did not have ample time to organise the festival. “However,the audience reaction was very encouraging,which made evident the need for such an event in the city,” he says. Organising funds for the festival was an “uphill task”.

This year,the festival organising team’s energy is mostly employed in getting prominent names from the literary world to attend the event. “Getting through to foreign authors is a tedious task as most of them have to be contacted through their agents,” he says. Getting Vikram Seth,who is known to be reclusive,was “the real coup”.

What Dharker considers to be a bonus is the opportunity to release Seth’s new book of poetry,The Rivered Earth,at the festival. The book consists of four libretti — Songs in Time of War,Shared Ground,The Traveller and Seven Elements — written to accompany music by Alec Roth. The event will also see the release of CY Gopinath’s The Book of Answers,David Davidar’s Ithaca,Tully’s latest Non-Stop India,Ad Katha edited by Gerson D’Cunha and Nihal Singh’s Ink in my Veins.

The festival will also feature performances related to The Last Mughal,Finkelstein’s Castle,written and composed by Pete Wyer and Matthew Sharp,a concerto called Death’s Cabaret-A Love Story and Ramprahar,a theatrical presentation based on Vijay Tendulkar’s writings. Considering that literature is the base of most art forms,these performances should add to this celebration of the beauty of writing.