The seventh edition of the Nepal Literature Festival being held on December 22-25 in Lakeside, Pokhara, will feature prominent writers and literary luminaries from across South Asia like Namita Ghokale, Gurcharan Das, Manjushree Thapa, Prajwal Parajuli and Mohammed Hanif.
Prominent Indian writer Gurcharan Das is going to launch his new book during the festival. Festival coordinator Rabin Giri says that the event will also feature a ‘master workshop’ by British graphic novelist Dr. Nicola Streeten, a photo exhibition by photo.circle as well as an art exhibition.
Giri says the festival will deal with topics like literature and democracy, women violence and economy, and topics that are not directly related to literature.
“We organizers believe that literature is an invaluable tool to inspect our society,” Giri says.
The festival is being sponsored by the IME Group. Its Managing Director Hem Raj Dhakal said that the group has always been always willing to work on creative still. “Since we have been offering scholarships to students from financially weak families and helping earthquake-affected families fund their children’s education, our interest in education and literacy seems to align with that of Bookworm’s,” Dhakal says.
On being asked about the choice of the venue, Pokhara, festival director Ajit Baral replied, “The environment of Pokhara is clean and majestic, making it a perfect place for the participating authors and guests to see the festival like a vacation experience, free from pollution and noise of overly-urbanized cities like Kathmandu.”
Bookworm has been hosting the Nepal Literature Festival since 2011. What started as an event featuring 75 literary figures, mostly from Nepal, has now turned into a major literature festival of South Asia, with 130 prominent writers, journalists and other literary luminaries participating at the last event in 2017.
“This upward trend is evident not only in the number of participating authors, but is also noticed in the number of visitors, which has soared from 1,000 in 2011 to 25,000 in 2017,” Giri says.
