KLF organisers address a press conference in Karachi on Tuesday. PHOTO: NIMRA MALIK/EXPRESS
KARACHI: Around 178 speakers from around the world will grace the eighth Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) this year, which will be held in the second week of February.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, Ameena Saiyid from Oxford University Press of Pakistan, who is the co-founder of the KLF, announced that historian Ayesha Jalal and Urdu writer Mustansir Hussain Tarar will be the keynote speakers on the inaugural day of the festival, February 10. Meanwhile, Bobby Sager from America and Pakistani author Mohammed Hanif will be delivering their remarks at the closing ceremony of the three-day event, she said.
Eighteen book launches and 70 sessions will be held during the festival, which will be take place at Beach Luxury hotel.
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Other than covering topics from Pakistan, the celebrated speakers will cover a variety of topics, such as honour killing, paying homage to Sibte Hasan, and sessions on Karachi, Palestine and Syria, said Saiyid. Roger Long, the biographer of Pakistan's first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, and yesteryears film star Shabnum will be coming from Bangladesh for the event, she added.
"This specific literature festival is the mother of all such festivals happening around the world," said KLF co-founder Asif Aslam Farrukhi. The KLF has triggered many festivals elsewhere, he said. "You will get to see and enjoy various sessions, panel talks, prize awarding ceremonies and meeting authors," Farrukhi added.
German consul-general in Karachi Rainer Schmiedchen announced that the German Peace Prize Dinner will be held on the opening day for authors and participants.
Guests from Germany, Professor Christina Oesterheld and writer Ilja Trojawon, will attend the event and will launch a textbook for Urdu learners in German medium," Schmiedchen said.
Encouraging reading: Children’s Literature Festival comes to an end
He added that he will present the first-ever German-Pakistani Graphic Novel at the KLF.
Shortlisted candidates for prizes KLF-Pepsi Non-Fiction Prize
Surkh Salam: Communist Politics and Class Activism in Pakistan 1947-1972 by Kamran Asdar Ali
A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia by Manan Ahmed Asif
The Raj at War by Yasmin Khan
KLF-Getz Pharma Fiction Prize
The Spinner's Tale by Omar Shahid Hamid
Dear Yasmin by Sophia Khan
Karachi Raj by Anis Shivani
KLF Peace Prize
Masculinity, Sexuality, and Illegal Migration: Human Smuggling from Pakistan to Europe by Ali Nobil Ahmad
Purifying the Land of the Pure by Farahnaz Ispahani
The Footprints of Partition by Anam Zakaria
KLF-Infaq Foundation Urdu Fiction/Non-Fiction Prize
Kulliyaat by Sarwat Hussain
Urdu Adab ki Tashkeel-e-Jadeed by Nasir Abbas Nayyar
Dahshat mein Muhabbat by Muhammad Hameed Shahid
Italy Reads Pakistan Award
A Pakistani jury of three judges has short-listed five works [novels written in English and Urdu (translated into English) by Pakistani nationals]
An Italian jury of three judges nominated by Metropoli d'Asia to select the winner to be announced at KLF 2017
Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2017.
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