Carnival of books

Lyndy Cooke, executive director of The Hay Festival of the Literature and the Arts, talks about the event that comes to Thiruvananthapuram in November

It will be carnival time in the city in November as The Hay Festival of the Literature and the Arts hits the shores of Kerala. An annual festival held in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales, it is one of the world's most prestigious literary festivals and it's hosting its first India edition in Kerala with around 40 leading authors.

The festival, which is on from November 12 to 14 at Kanakakunnu Palace promises to be a delight for bibliophiles. Besides literature, it will also explore new ideas on arts, poetry et al.

An annual event
Says Lyndy Cooke, executive director of the event: “The Hay Festival in the United Kingdom covers a range of ideas, thoughts and topics. Environment, arts, history, politics, fiction…With around 500 events across 11 days it attracts record audience each year. At the previous Hay Festival, we registered an attendance of 200,000. In Kerala, the Hay Festival will be an annual event and we will invite the best international authors, thinkers, publishers and up-and-coming authors. The focus of the fete this year will be more specific, centering on literature, environment, culture, health and education. We will start it small and then let it grow.”

Full report here Hindu