Pune International Literary Festival to take place between September 2nd & 4th
- The first and the only literary festival of English literature in Pune
- Infosys Co-Founder N. R. Narayana Murthy to inaugurate the fest
- Opportunity for readers to interact with acclaimed Indian and international authors
Pune, August 17: ‘Pune International Literary Festival, the first and the only festival of English literature in the city of Pune shall be organized for the forth consecutive year between September 2nd and 4th at YASHADA on Baner road. This was announced by Dr. Manjiri Prabhu, Founder and Festival Director of Pune International Literary Festival (PILF) during a Press Conference held in the city today.
Professor Ravikumar M. Chitnis, Principal MITSOM, Trupti Agarwal, Director of Vishwakarma Publications, Sabina Sanghvi, Member of Advisory Board, PILF, Bipinchandra Chaugule and Leena Prabhu, Members of the Organizing Committee of PILF were also present on the occasion.
PILF has been providing an interesting avenue to avid readers, where they get an opportunity to hear and interact with acclaimed authors and creative personalities from India and abroad. Infosys Co-Founder N. R. Narayana Murthy has consented to be the Chief Guest for the inauguration function of PILF, which will take place at 12:15 pm on September 2nd. Please note that there is no entry fee to visit PILF.
This is the 4th consecutive edition of PILF and Dr. Manjiri Prabhu has been successfully organizing this literary fest with support from MIT Group of Institutions since the past three years and Vishwakarma Publications since the last year. This year PILF has also been supported by Frankfurt Book Fair, Salzburg Global Seminar, UNICEF and Save the Children.
Speaking on the occasion Dr. Manjiri Prabhu said, “Though over 70 literary festivals are hosted every year in India across various cities, Pune never had one. So with an intention to give its own literary festival of English literature to the city of Pune we started PILF 3 years ago.”
“The primary objective of the fest is to act as a platform between authors and readers for their direct interaction and thereby contributing towards promoting the book reading culture, which has been losing its sheen due to various reasons”, she added.
During this 3 day fest, participants will get to hear some of the best minds from various fields including N. R. Narayana Murthy, Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar, Shobhaa De, Rajdeep Sardesai, Anupam Kher, Ashwin Sanghi, Ad-Guru Prasoon Joshi, Archie Comics CEO Nancy Silberkleit, famous hair dresser Javed Habib, Aarshiya sattar, Aviruk Sen and Kailash Surendranath to name a few.
‘Children’s Rights’ would be the social theme of PILF this year. Here, an attempt would be made to create awareness about the same though various activities like Street Plays by Save the Children organization. A special exhibition on Enid Blyton is one of the important highlights of this year’s PILF. Enid is a British Author, who is known for her outstanding work in the field of children’s books. Her books have been among best sellers in the world since 1930s. This year, her 118th death anniversary is being celebrated all over the world.
Some of the panel discussions that PILF will organize this year include, The Changing Trends of Marathi Cinema, 60 Years of Frankfurt Book Fair, Relevance in Recreation – Mythology and Ramayan, Marathi Literature in Changing Time, Poetry from Heart to Heart, Challenging Global Leaders, Women Relationships and Law.
PILF will have a series titled ‘Yours Truly’. Eminent speakers will share their thoughts and experiences about their personal and professional life.
In this series. This year the ‘Yours Truly’ series at PILF will feature N. R. Narayana Murthy and Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar on the first day of the festival. The second day will have Shobhaa De, also Aviruk Sen and Dr. K. H. Sancheti will be on different panels on that day. The 3rd and the last day of PILF will have many eminent personalities including Rajdeep Sardesai, Prasoon Joshi, Maya Mirchandani and Ashwin Sanghi. The PILF will conclude with a special Yours Truly session by noted film actor Anupam Kher.
