A Little Girl In A Big City
The big city life can be daunting and exciting at the same time. How does a little girl view the big bad city? The panel discussion with a very engaging moderator, Rachna Singh, took many a turn on defining what …
BLF 2015 Reports
A World Undone: 100 Years of World War I
This discussion took the audience back in history, to the the cataclysmic First World War. It was an earth-shattering event, that most people don’t really remember today, mostly because the witnesses are no longer alive. The horrors the war perpetuated …
Are We Heading Towards an Intolerant India Today?
The most awaited panel discussion of the Bangalore Literature Festival was inaugurated with a beautiful message by Tasnima Nasreen on the issue of growing intolerance in the nation, which set the tone and topic for the rest of the discussion. …
Are we speaking the same language?
Four renowned writers who write in different languages came together to discuss language as a medium of expression in a session moderated by Dr. Janaky Sreedaran who opened the debate by asking a question – “Given the vast number of …
Atta Galatta-BLF Book Awards
A new addition added lustre to this year’s BLF – the literary awards. The Bangalore Literature Festival presented literary awards in association with Atta Galatta (founded by Subodh Sankar and Lakshmi Subodh). Atta Galatta is also the Official Festival Bookstore.…
Bookalore’s Puppet Party
Bookalore’s Puppet Party, a puppet-based story-telling event by Mrs.Vijayalaxmi was one of the best events for kids at Bangalore Literature Festival.
The session started on an upbeat mode. She started the story by singing a song ‘Dino Dino Dinosaur’. The …
Challenges facing Creative Writing in Sanskrit today
Dr. Shatavadhani R Ganesh, a practitioner of the art of avadhana, a polyglot, an author in Sanskrit and Kannada and an extempore poet in multiple languages began the session by saying that it’s very heartening to attend and moderate a …
Challenges to Modernity: MJ Akbar
A thought-provoking talk by well-known journalist and author MJ Akbar on the challenges to modernity in India held the audience in captive attention.
The national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand began by …
Confessions of a Biographer
Confessions of a Biographer captures the secrets of four authors who have focused on writing biographies on women. The authors were engaged in a panel discussion by Mr Sunil Sethi.
The panel discussion included the following: Emily Holleman who is …
Cracking the Bollywood Code
There are few things that have the capacity to bind a nation together, and bridge boundaries drawn by religion, caste, education level, social class, status, power, you name it. Cinema is one of them. It’s a beautiful blanket woven in …
Creating your Protagonist – The Agony and Ecstasy
The protagonist of any book is whom the readers root for. Creating this protagonist can be a mammoth task. This writers’ panel discussion moderated by Manju Jaidka revolved around this while talking about the panelists’ own experience in creating protagonists.…
Eight Threats to Freedom of Expression
Ramachandra Guha gave a riveting talk on freedom of expression in India and the threats it faces on day 1 of the Bangalore Literature Festival. The ‘India After Gandhi’ author was equally critical of both ends of the political spectrum, …
Ethnic Identities in the Midst of Conflict
This session was bound to pique everyone’s interest, and translated into a wonderful crowd that gathered to witness this discussion, with Maya Mirchandani as its moderator. Haroon Khalid, Mohammad Zaman Azurdah and Padma Rao Sundarji constituted the board of panelists.…
From Anna to AAP: Mass movement to political party to governance
Two spokespersons of different political parties held a riveting debate on the evolution from Anna to AAP at the Bangalore Literature Festival.
Moderator Ashwin Mahesh kicked off the discussion by outlining two broad questions that he said would pervade the …
How to discover your own Gita?: Devdutt Pattanaik in conversation with Mani Rao
It’s not every day that we get to witness two remarkably adept scholars in mutual admiration of each other’s works, drawing on each other’s extensive knowledge in a lively discussion on discovering the Bhagavad Gita. So on Day 1 of …
How to write great chillers and thrillers
It is never too late to listen to your heart. But for some, life is too short to wait. Here is Zac O’Yeah, who “retired” (that is how he puts it) from his career as a theatre artist merely at …
Inaugural Session
The 4th edition of Bangalore Literature Festival commenced on 5th December, 2015. The two day long festival will have the best of speakers, writers and thought leaders come together and share their honest and unbiased views on literature …
It’s an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World
This was by far one of the most highly anticipated sessions of BLF, and rightly so. It was full house before it started, and by the time it began in full swing, there were cheers and applause searing the atmosphere.…
Karnakavita: Hindi Kavya Sammelan
Atta Galata had recently published ‘Karnakavita’, a compilation of poetic works of 30 Hindi poets based in Bangalore. Five of them joined us in BLF 2015 to recite their poems and discuss the various cultural, artistic and lingual issues. …