Meet the Wordsmiths

Nobel laureate Sir Vidia S Naipaul’s presence — who will be honoured with Landmark Lifetime Achievement Award at the Tata Theatre today — marks the highlight of this edition. That apart,the long list for this year’s Tata Literature Live! First Book Award includes Yasmeen Premji (The King in Exile),Naresh Fernandes (Taj Mahal Foxtrot),Aarthi Ramachandran (Decoding Rahul Gandhi) and Ruchir Sharma (Breakout Nations). The winner will be announced on the last day of the fest.

A number of books will be launched,including India Grows at Night by Gurucharan Das,Sethji by Shobhaa De,Jinnah vs Gandhi by Roddy Matthews and the Hindi edition of Amish Tripathi’s Secret of the Nagas. Tripathi says that he’s party to the cause of showcasing regional language books at the fest. “Many literary fests do not give the respect and attention due to regional languages. I’m glad that Lit Live! is an exception,” he says.

The fest will put the spotlight on renowned literary works. While Naseeruddin Shah will helm the production Thurber and Seth’s Animals,Astad Deboo’s scheduled performance,Interpreting Tagore,is inspired by Rabindranath Tagore’s poems. Two plays will pay ode to Shakespeare — Hip-hop Shakespeare,a medley of songs inspired by the Bard’s famous plays and sonnets,and Hayavadana,where Shakespeare’s works have been interwoven with Indian folklore. Other anticipated performances include An Instinct of Kindness,an award-winning play on euthanasia by Chris Larner; The Why-Why Girl,a musical adaptation of Mahashweta Devi’s story Kyun Kyun Ladki; and the performance of Martin Kiszko’s poem Green Poems For A Blue Planet.

The event will play host to lectures by theatre personality Girish Karnad and investigative journalist Scott Carney. Fiction features prominently in the panel discussions — be it cross cultural narratives,photo fiction or erotic fiction. Subjects such as biographies,Indian poetry over the last 2000 years and the future of Indian publishing ,will dominate the non-fiction section.

For the first time,the festival will host workshops,two of which are aimed at children. “The idea was to cater to a wide spectrum of people and not just keen followers of literature,” explains Dharker. Other workshops include creative writing,developing a play from scratch,travel writing,exploring the use of language in poetry and writing memoirs.