LAHORE: The Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) is expected to attract more than double number of visitors compared to last year, say the festival organisers. The festival is spread over three days rather than two days to include more panels on varied subjects.

"We had over 60 speakers in our last festival. This time we have about 120 people on our panels," says Nusrat Jamil, a member of the advisory committee. "A very good thing is that a lot of people are coming from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka just to visit and that is very encouraging."

She says the organisers of the Dhaka and Calcutta literary festivals are also coming to the event and some people behind the Berlin Literature Festival are also expected.

"We have a very diverse spread this time," she says. "We have literature but we also have discussions and sessions on art, culture, music, politics and performing arts."

There were complaints from certain quarters last year that Urdu and Punjabi literature were missing but there would be much more this time, Ms Jamil says, adding that writers and speakers from Karachi will also be participating in the LLF.

While there is no one dominating theme of the festival, there are several interesting sessions, revolving around women and their influence in various aspects of Pakistani literature, sessions on humour and satire, which were extremely popular last year, and one on children literature - an important and overlooked aspect of literature.

There will also be a session on young writers who will speak about their experiences of writing and publishing.