The city of the Taj will host about 60 writers, poets and scholars from all the eight south Asian countries at the SAARC Festival of Literature, to be held in the city from March 13-16.
Besides literature, considerable attention is expected to be on terrorism, ethnic angst and popular culture. "The focus this year is on terrorism. The foundation is organising the festival at a time when expectations from the creative fraternity and peace activists have soared in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai and sensitivities of the creative fraternity across the SAARC region, particularly in Pakistan and India, are shaken and bruised," festival founder Ajeet Caur said.
Caur set up the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature in 1997, which received the government seal in 1999.
13 writers from Pakistan and 8 from Afghanistan are to attend the festival. Afghanistan and Myanmar are participating at this annual festival for the first time.
Expected participants include Jayant Mahapatra, who will inaugurate the festival, Mahashweta Devi, Kapila Vatsyayan, Gulzar, Abid Hussain, M J Akbar, Mushirul Hasan, Seema Mustafa and Indira Goswami.
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