LAHORE: The three-day Alhamra International Literary and Cultural Festival will commence from Dec 11 at Alhamra Art Centre, The Mall.

The chief guest at the opening ceremony will be Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and in the inaugural session, Nadeem Sadi. Writers such as Intizar Husain, Masood Ashar and Amjad Islam Amjad will read their papers.

The second session of the day will be on Lahore under the title ‘Lahore Aaj Aaur Kal’ wherein Dr Ajaz Anwar, Kamran Lashari and others will participate.

The day will conclude with a dance performance by Nighat Chaudhry and Wahab Shah.

The second day of the festival also has interesting sessions such as Women Fiction Writers, the World of Cartoons, Seraiki Literature, A Tribute to Mehdi Hassan, The Identity of Pakistan in Visual Arts, Balochi and Pashto Literature and the Importance and Rights of Mother Tongue.

The third and concluding day of the festival will also have sessions on different topics such as Hundred Years of Urdu Short Story, Remembering Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and the Film Music.

The closing session of the festival will be presided over by Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif. There will be a musical evening as well at the concluding night which will feature Arif Lohar, Suriya Multanikar and Shafqat Ali Khan.

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2015