KARACHI: Ever since its inception in 2010, the Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) has become a credible symbol of Pakistan’s bustling cultural life that the rest of the world either did not know much about or could not see because of the mist created by the violence-scarred goings-on that the country had come to be identified with. On Friday (today), the eighth edition of the event will begin for which the organisers, led by the festival founders Ameena Saiyid and Asif Farrukhi, have twice engaged the media — once at the Karachi Press Club in December and then at the Arts Council on Jan 24.

This goes to show the importance they attach to KLF: it’s not merely a get-together of writers and their readers; it is a platform for conveying a message to the international community that Pakistan is a country rooted in rich and diverse culture.

The first two KLF editions (in 2010 and 2011) were held at the Carlton Hotel. After that, the event has been taking place at the scenic Beach Luxury Hotel. One distinctly remembers literary giant Shamsur Rehman Farooqui and writer Shobhaa De addressing large gatherings of book lovers at the Carlton. This was the time when KLF had just begun to find its feet.

Talking to this newspaper about the difference that he felt between the Jaipur Literature Festival and its Karachi counterpart, Mr Farooqui had remarked that while the former was larger in scale, the latter had more ‘warmth’. He was spot-on. It is all about the warmth with which the festival receives everyone who wishes to come into its fold.

This year, like every year, a stellar and eclectic line-up of writers and artists has graced the programmes’ list covering three days. The keynote speakers on the inaugural and closing days include eminent historian Ayesha Jalal, Urdu fictionist and travel writer Mustansar Husain Tarar, novelist and journalist Mohammed Hanif and American philanthropist Bob Sager. Then Pakistan’s first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan’s biographer Roger Long will be seen in conversation with Akbar Liaquat Ali.

Apart from that, more than a dozen books will be launched, which range from novels to poetry collections to research work on eastern classical music.

In keeping with the KLF tradition, sessions have been dedicated to art and artists as well as to showbiz luminaries. It is heartening to note that this time round film star Shabnam, who worked in a number of Pakistani films and now lives in Bangladesh, will be one of the main attractions at the KLF 2017.

Here’s something that has saddened book readers in recent times. In the last couple of years, Pakistan has lost some of its leading figures in Urdu literature, one of whom, Intizar Husain, used to be a regular participant of the event. He died a few days prior to the 2016 edition of the festival. Due homage was paid to the writer at last year’s opening and closing ceremonies. Another towering figure, Abdullah Husain, too, is no more with us. They are sorely missed. This is the kind of emotional attachment that the event has been able to instil in readers to their literary heroes, because now they not only read their works but also get to see and meet them without the fan-star distance between them.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2017