Looking for ideas to write a novel? Litfest has answers

KOLKATA: How does one start writing a novel? For answers, make it to ‘First Day First Show’, a session featuring debut novelists Saskya Jain, Pia Padukone, Sorabh Pant and Avik Chanda on Day 4 of the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival (AKLF) 2015 being organized here in association with The Times of India from January 14.
The day’s second session will have Pakistani writer and journalist Mohammed Hanif in conversation with columnist Ruchir Joshi while the third will feature Florence Noiville of France, K Anis Ahmed of Bangladesh and Mohammed Hanif in a discussion on ‘Border Crossings: Across The Language Divide’.It will be moderated by Lahore Litfest director Razi Ahmed.
A highlight of the day will be novelist Hanif Kureishi in conversation with Victor Banerjee and British Council’s eastern India director Sujata Sen. ‘Fact & Fiction: History as literature or social science’ will have Ramachandra Guha dissecting various approaches to history before he talks about the topic with JU professor emeritus Supriya Chaudhuri. The Lascar War Memorial will be the setting for the launch of Captain Amarinder Singh’s ‘Honour & Fidelity: India’s military contribution to the Great War 1914-18’ and its release by former army chief General (retired) Shankar Roychoudhury. The book launch will be followed by an audio-visual presentation on World War I and interaction between the author and veteran journalist Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
The last day of the litfest will start with history buffs being treated to a show of rare manuscripts at the Indian Museum, from where they’ll walk down Chowringhee and then Park Street to end the ‘literary heritage walk’ at Derozio’s grave at the Park Street cemetery. This exciting event will be followed by a literary ‘adda’ between Hanif Kureishi, Ashis Nandy, Ramachandra Guha, Shekhar Gupta, Sugata Bose, Kalyan Ray, Mohammed Hanif, Tilottama Tharoor, Meera Mitra, Ruchir Joshi, K Anis Ahmed and some others at the Bengal Club.
Ashis Nandy will then release Meera Mitra’s book ‘Breaking Through: India’s stories on beating the odds on poverty’ before sitting down with Mitra, filmmaker Goutam Ghose and social activist Sudha Kaul to discuss the book. It will be moderated by festival co-director Anjum Katyal. Author and academic Kalyan Ray will release photographer Laura McPhee’s ‘The Home & the world—A view of Calcutta’ at a session where American Center director Joanne Joria will be the
guest of honour. Intach will display rare photographs of Kolkata at this session to be held at The Park.
The curtains will come down at AKLF with a panel discussion on ‘Has India Kept Her Tryst With Destiny’ between Shekhar Gupta, Ashis Nandy, Kannada poet and educationist Chandrasekhar Kambar, Srinath Raghavan and historian Sugata Bose on the steps of National Library.