Close To The Bone
With the labelling of ‘Close to the bone’ as a cancer memoir by the literary world and the rest of it, Lisa Ray challenged this idea by speaking extensively about the trials and tribulations that she had to survive …
BLF Live
BLF 2019 Reports
ये रिश्ता क्या कहलाता है – Relationships in Contemporary Hindi Writing
The session ‘ये रिश्ता क्या कहलाता है – Relationships in Contemporary Hindi Writing’, explored the relationship between Hindi and other languages in India as well some undefined uncertain relations the characters form in the stories. The panel had Purushottam …
First Novels and Nation Building
Vanamala Viswanatha who is an award-winning translator, working with Kannada and English, introduced the first Kannada novel ‘Indira Bai: The Triumph of Truth and Virtue’ by Gulvadi Venkata Rao who hailed from south kannada region. This novel is about a …
Today in Indian SF
This was a session of a different genre, with Gautham Shenoy, a Science Fiction (SF) columnist thanking Bangalore Literature Festival for giving a platform to have this conversation.
The panel comprised of Indrapramit Das (Indra), whose short fiction has appeared …
Wasted
Manreet Sodhi Someshwar was in conversation with Ankur Bisen during the Bangalore Literature Festival 2019. Manreet Sodhi Someshwar is an Indian author. She is primarily known for her novels ‘The Long Walk Home’ and ‘The Taj Conspiracy‘. …
Can Seaweed Save the Climate?
Tim Flannery is an Australian author who has served as the Chief Commissioner of the Climate Commission, a federal government body providing information on climate change to the Australian public. Flannery was named ‘Australian Humanist of the Year’ in 2005 …
Moola Ramayana
It was peak afternoon and Yayati ground was crowded with people all around waiting for Prasanna’s talk on Moola Ramayana. Prasanna hails from a theatre background and has founded the influential Kannada group Samudhaya in 1970. Apart from that, he …
A Life in the World: UR Ananthamurthy
Chandan Gowda, who teaches at Azim Premji University, Bangalore and a columnist for Bangalore Mirror and Deccan Herald was in conversation with Nikhil Govind who is the head of Manipal Centre for Humanities, Manipal University. The session started with the …
ಎಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ಬಂತು ನೆಟ್ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ? Unveiling the Kannada Netizen’s World
Rajendra Prasad and Tina Shashikanth had an interesting discussion on “what is the role of the writer in today’s digital world”. Rajendra Prasad is a widely read new generation Kannada poet. He is also a writer and editor of Kannada …
Nari Shakti – Women in Bengali and Oriya Literature
Under the crimson canopy of The Red Couch began a discourse on Oria and Bengali women’s foray into the primarily patriarchal arena of Indian literature. The panellists, Dr Sanjukta Dasgupta and Paramita Satpathy, who are both immensely accomplished in the …
Imagining (an)other – Men Writing Women
A conversation with writers Amitabha Bagchi, Chandrahas Choudhury, Deepak Unnikrishnan , Mahesh Rao anchored by Karthika Nair was initiated with the fundamental question – “How do men write women characters? Is gender the greatest distance you have to traverse while …
Retold
Three potent female writers celebrated mythologies on the stage at the festival, talking about the narrativizing the retelling of a story. Karthika Nair and Samhita Padikkal both retold Mahabharata while Gayathri Prabhu chose the stories of Vikram and Vetal as …
Art and Soul of the City
With the premise of how festivals and culture keeps a society alive, the panel was mediated by Sadhana Rao. Sadhana is a research-led writer and curator in the Arts & Culture area. She has written on Travel, Socio-Economics, Literature, Film …
Beyond Asanas: Changing Perceptions About Yoga
‘Beyond Asanas’ session was titled in retrospect of the book Pragya wrote. Pragya Bhatt was born in New Delhi and grew up around the world with her parents who were in the Indian Foreign Service. After completing her schooling from …
The Power of Realism – Writing Workshop
The hall was huddled with a larger audience than it could handle. Taking the little spaces on the seamless carpet, more people chimed in. The writing workshop organized was titled as ‘The Power of Realism’. Julia Prendergast headed the 2-hour …
I’m OK, You’re OK – Exploring Mental Landscapes
The biggest panel of Bengaluru Literature Festival focused on breaking mental health barriers and was moderated by Amandeep Sandhu, author of the novel ‘Sepia Leaves’.
The conversation involved remarkable writers and pioneers of mental health awareness. Amandeep started the …
The Havoc of Choice
Choice is something that some have and some don’t. But when it comes to elections, everybody has a choice. The choice that we make will significantly impact our lives. Election changes the lives of people, in one way or the …
Art and the Raj
As dusk settled into the horizon, we moved towards discussing the bygone eras of India. The atmosphere was fitting, the excitement subsided and the gathering calmly awaited the perspectives that cameras had captured of our pasts.
We missed Mr. …
Inside the LeT
The Indian political environment is ripe with stories of Islamic invasions, Hindu-Muslim tensions and land title disputes. The easiest emotional currency that politicians can use is Kashmir, terrorism and Pakistan’s LeT. While navigating through this fragile socio-political atmosphere, Christine Fair …
Writing Sport
One of the much awaited sessions of the Bangalore Literature Festival titled ‘Writing Sport’, began with an interesting and hilarious joke by Nandan Kamath. He said “a journalist, an umpire, and a cricketer walk into a bar and end up …