Ahmedabad:

Organized by former DNA editor Shyam Parekh and Samkit Shah, the 5th edition of Gujarat Literature Festival (GLF) will be held here from January 3 to 7 next year during which for the first time ‘GLF Awards’ would be announced for writers, publishers and other literary genres.

Addressing a joint press conference here today the organizers said that over 100 events would be held during the five day fest in which nearly 200 local, national and international authors, experts and performers from different languages will participate. Debates, discussions on various topics, story telling, stand up poetry, stage performances, films shows, workshops and master-classes would be part of the festival to be held at multiple venues of Kanoria center, Hutheesing Visual Arts Center, Amdavad ni gufa for arts and Senate hall of Gujarat university. Several foreign speakers would also participate in it. Well-known writers and performers like Anjum Rajabali, Ashok Mishra, Devdutt Pattnaik, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghose, Mallika Sarabhai, Vinay Kumar, Ketan Mehta have confirmed their participation.

Member of GLF organizing committee Rajendrabhai Patel said that the theme of the firth season of the festival was ‘story telling’ and was focused towards youths. ‘It will be for the first time that the GLF will take place in two cities though at different times. It will be held in Vadodara also from February 2 to 4.’

‘Since Ahmedabad has got the UNESCO heritage city status, there will also be a series on heritage during which different experts would throw light on different periods of the historic city including its medieval and modern heritages,’ Niharika Shah said.

For the first time a story telling competition for children and plays will be included in the festival,’ Patel informed adding that a novel move to give new writers an opportunity an event by name ‘Ink Tank’ will also be held wherein the aspiring writers would pitch the concept to a panel of publishers and if they find it interesting they will pick of the stories right then and there, offering a signing amount and if the work delivered was of the promised quality, publish it.

DeshGujarat