KARACHI: The 10th edition of the Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) will be held on March 1, 2 and 3 at Beach Luxury Hotel in which more than 220 Pakistani and 15 international speakers will take part.

This was announced by Managing Director Oxford University Press Arshad Saeed Husain at a press conference at the Arts Council on Thursday evening.

Mr Husain first shed light on the objectives of the event, some of which are: to create intellectual space and intra-cultural harmony, to promote Pakistani and international literary talent and to reclaim cultural space. The theme of this year’s festival is ‘The focus is tomorrow’ — keeping in mind the burgeoning young population of the country.

Mr Husain said the event is open to all with free entry. This year the Pakistani and international speakers will be participating in more than 80 sessions and 20 book launches. When the event began a decade back, 5,000 people visited the venue while last year, 200,000 came to the event. In the 10th edition, 11 countries will be represented.

Mr Husain said among international speakers Anita M. Weiss, Anna Suvorara, David Waterman and Leila Aboulela will be seen expressing their views at different sessions while from Pakistan writers and poets such as Iftikhar Arif, Nasir Abbas Nayyar, Atiya Dawood, Anwar Maqsood and H.M. Naqvi etc will be there.

Salman Tarik Kureishi, who is a member of the KLF advisory committee, said this time around the focus is on the younger generation of writers and poets. The organisers want the relatively younger writers to take centre stage.

Javed Jabbar said the festival it not confined to Karachi but has an international appeal.

Critic Muneeza Shamsie said she’s excited to be part of the advisory committee. She loved the theme ‘The focus is tomorrow’ because it combines everything — past, present and future — and indicates where we are headed.

Iftikhar Arif, whose recorded message was shown since he’s in Islamabad, said it was Oxford University Press which laid the foundation for literature festivals in Pakistan, beginning with the Karachi Literature Festival and spreading to Islamabad. The second worthy aspect of the event is that it gathers writers from all across the world to be on one platform.

Mujahid Barelvi and Ahmed Shah also spoke. Raheela Baqai conducted the press conference.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2019