LAHORE: The sixth edition of Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) is all set to take place back at its original venue of Alhamra after being pushed to hold truncated events at luxury hotels in the last two years.

Once again, the festival organisers have managed to get hold of some popular names from the international media and/or literature worlds with the two-day event this year hosting Emmy Award-winning British actor Riz Ahmed and Iranian-American author Reza Aslan.

Aslan will be part of two sessions over the two days — ‘Light at the End of Trumpian Disruption’ along with Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri and British political scientist and author Mark Leonard as well as a one-on-one session ‘Beyond Extremism’ with Khaled Ahmed.

Writers from home and abroad will discuss from art to history to literature at two-day festival

Riz Ahmed will be sharing the stage with LLF favourite Mohsin Hamid where they will be talking to Shahid Zahid about activism.

Other panel discussions run the gamut from politics, art, social issues to history, entertainment and, of course, literature comprising Sri Lankan, British, American, Pakistani and Turkish speakers to mention a few. Aitzaz Ahsan, Hina Rabbani Khar, Kishwer Naheed, F.S. Aijazuddin, Asghar Nadeem Syed and Salima Hashmi are some of the permanent LLF fixtures that have retained their spots.

As expected, the festival will hold memorial sessions for the late Asma Jahangir and Munoo Bhai, both of whom we lost this year. The talk on Asma, titled ‘Warrior Icon’, will feature her children Munizae and Jilani along with her longtime friends I.A. Rehman, Ahmed Rashid and Salima Hashmi, while the discussion on Munoo Bhai will have I.A. Rehman, Kishwer Naheed, Waja­hat Masood and Hussain Naqi.

The keynote address will be delivered by New York-based Pakistani oncologist, Dr Azra Raza with an introduction by Arfa Syeda Zehra.

Book launches, talks on various books, musical performance by Laal the band and Zia Mohyeddin’s presentation on ‘Why is Shakespeare, Shakes­peare’ are also part of the festival.

Talking to Dawn.com on Thursday, LLF founder Razi Ahmed had said: “Because there’s little that the electronic media is discussing which is healthy. There’s a vicious breaking cycle momentum that they maintain around the year. So it’s important for a festival like this to create room for dialogue, engagement, dissent, for ideas to be channelled and to have a healthy exchange between local and global speakers.”

British novelist Esther Freud is also participating in the festival and will be part of a discussion titled ‘The Mundane as Incubator’ along with Osama Siddique, Irvine Welsh with Hugh Thompson. She is visiting Pakistan for the first time and says she’s looking forward to seeing the other panellists, listening to the discussions, and being stimulated and inspired. “Apart from appearing at the festival, I’m looking forward to seeing as much of the city as possible,” she added.

What convinced her to participate in the festival was her curiosity about Pakistan. “It was a chance to visit Pakistan, a country I’ve not been to before. And I’d heard reports that the festival was very interesting.”

However, historian Audrey Truschke, another LLF participant, has visited the city earlier in 2007 for two weeks and she feels it has developed immensely over the last 11 years. “The development is great. There’s Metro bus running. I went to see the Mughal monuments that have been restored wonderfully.”

She says what brought her to Pakistan again was a chance to gauge audience perception of her book, Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth, that she will be talking about here. “I’ve had great reception to my book in India, so I wanted to see how Pakistan receives it. And I’m most excited about the questions from the audience during my session.”

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2018