Celebrating words and ideas on the beach

Those who fear that reading is in decline would have been pleasantly shocked at the eighth edition of the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF) held from January 23 to 26.

- Chintan Girish Modi

Hordes filled every venue set up on Kozhikode beach and readers showed up to hear authors, buy books and take selfies with their literary idols. The sea was not just a backdrop. Its glorious presence, vast and endless, made KLF stand out.

The festival, which calls itself "a global celebration of words, cultures and ideas", featured Nobel Laureates Esther Duflo and Venki Ramakrishnan alongside Booker Prize winners such as Jenny Erpenbeck, Michael Hofmann, Paul Lynch, and Georgi Gospodoniv. Clearly, the organisers pulled out all stops to accomplish their goal of bringing in at least six lakh attendees.

The speaker line-up included other big names such as diplomat Shiv Shankar Menon, filmmaker Mani Ratnam, cricketer Syed Kirmani, and singer Mir Mukhtiyar Ali. There were discussions on children's literature, identity politics, global warming, queer literature, maritime history, artificial intelligence, feminist writing, foreign policy, and the global financial crisis.