It's been a long wait of a year, but the Kolkata International Book Fair is finally kicking off from tomorrow at Salt Lake's Central Park. Of course, we can't wait to line up the stalls and pick up as many books as possible. Along with this, we have the Kolkata Literature Festival (Boi Mela's lit fest) also coming up.
The Kolkata Literature Festival Is Back With Boi Mela & Here's What To Look Out For
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What Makes It Awesome
An extension of Boi Mela, the Kolkata Literature Festival is coming back this year on Feb 7. Three days of talks, conversations, special panel discussions, live performances and author meets, the festival has a heavy line-up to look forward to this year. Popular authors like Ashwin Sanghi, Andaleeb Wajid, Irshad Kamil, Benyamin, Anita Nair, Shirshendu Mukherjee and Amitabha Bagchi to international screen writers like Carlo Pizzati and others.
The one that we are totally excited to attend is the special panel given to discussing graphic novels this year. Moderated by artist Pinaki De, the panel will include famous artists like Thomas Cadène (check out his book Alt-Life), Munnu: A Boy From Kashmir's author Malik Sajad, Appupen of Moonward's fame and Sankha Banerjee.
There's also a special children's session on the schedule that will discuss the topic of exposing kids to gender, mental health and caste issues. The prestigious Jit Paul Memorial Lecture will have Gurcharan Das as the speaker this year.
What Could Be Better
It's a short three days of cramped together sessions. Nothing can be better than a few more days of the festival and some more authors in the line up.
Pro-Tip
Like every year, there will be live performance at the end of each day of the literature festival. On day one, Pandit Ajay Chakraborty will perform. Day two will have a play, Ek Je Chilo Raja, and on day three there will be a dance recital by Mamata Shankar.