PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, Oct 21: Mumbai’s acclaimed literature festival ” Tata Literature Live ! The Mumbai LitFest ” will continue its tradition of presenting leading personalities from among the world’s best authors, thinkers, writers, and artists for its 12th edition.
Tata Steel officials said the festival will be held from November 18-21, on a virtual format for the second year in a row, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
As in previous years there will be an international stellar line up across literature, poetry, philosophy, science, business and the arts, including Amitav Ghosh, Salman Rushdie, Anne Enright, Steven Pinker, Nick Hornby, Shashi Tharoor, Indra Nooyi, David Baldacci, Ashis Nandy, Nguy?n Phan Qu? Mai, Vidya Dehejia, Martin Kemp, Rebecca Solnit, Ruskin Bond, Amish, Neena Gupta, Ashwin Sanghi, Matthew Weiner, Marlon James, Shobhaa De, Rutger Bregman, Amy Blakemore, Matt Haig, Heather Morris, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Dolly Thakore, Jonathan Drori, Hilary Leichter, Daniel Lieberman, Farah Bashir and Sanjena Sathian.
Viewers can also look forward to the traditional highlights of the festival- the Lifetime Achievement Award to a distinguished literary personality; the presentation to the annual Poet Laureate; the Great Debate; daily performances including children, and the prestigious Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest Literary Awards for the First Book and Book of the Year in the fiction and non-fiction categories, Business Book of the Year, and Publisher of the Year.
The popular Little Festival for Children, the first such of which was begun alongside the Litfest two years ago, will also take place simultaneously, as will a Campus Festival – a series of talks by participating writers for college students.
Tata Literature Live! Mumbai Litfest has always had a tradition of regularly introducing a new element.
This year will see the Introduction to Indian languages with a session each on Marathi prose and poetry, along with a performance in Marathi.
This year’s festival will be an act of tribute to its founder and founder-director Anil Dharker who passed away in March , 2021.
He pioneered the concept of a Literary Festival for Mumbai and made it into an internationally known and respected forum through the depth and range of his knowledge and access, and his extraordinary efforts.
The festival will also salute the memory of Shashi Baliga, its executive director, who lost the battle to Covid-19 in May this year.
Speaking about the Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest 2021, director of the festival, Amy Fernandes said, ” The Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai Litfest is a much-awaited annual event. Despite the enormous challenges of the past 18 months, we have been able to maintain an unbroken series to announce its 12th avatar this year.”
