Mumbai: Three-day literature festival kicks off

Marathi poet and leading Dalit feminist Pradnya Daya Pawar, who is attending the festival for the first time, said plurality of voice and experience represented in the festival is what interests her. “When any woman writes, it is very significant and especially when it is a Dalit woman writer. The voices that different women authors would raise in the festival is an encouraging and welcome step,” she said.

One of the biggest draws at the festival is Bengali writer Baby Haldar, who shot to fame with her account of her life as a domestic help and who was presented with the Gateway LitFest Woman Writer of the Year Award. Over the next two days, women writers from diverse backgrounds, like Nalini Jameela, Temsula Ao, Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, Rana Ayyub and Aswathy Sasikumar, will speak on a number of issues affecting women in not just literature, but other spheres, such as theatre and politics.