English, Urdu, Punjabi and Pashtu writers will participate in the first-ever Islamabad Literature Festival (ILF) organized by Oxford University Press (OUP) on April 30 and May 1 at the Margala Hotel in Islamabad. The Inaugural session will be addressed by European Union Ambassador HE Lars Gunner and OUP Managing Director Ameena Saiyid (OBE).
The two-day ILF is packed with sessions on literature and political issues, book launches, dastangoi, mushaira and a play to close the evenings of April 30 and May 1. The entry to the ILF is free in order to provide an opportunity to book lovers to interact with famous writers who were attending the festival.
Leading writers, journalist and artists who will be speaking at the festival include Muneeza Shamsie, Intizar Husain, Zehra Nigah, Shahzad Roy, Kamila Shamsie, Sanaa Bucha, Mustansar Hussain Tarar, Ilona Yusuf, Athar Tahir, Harris Khalique, Abdullah Hussain, Aamer Hussain, Mohammad Hanif, Amjad Shahzad, Zubair Hasrat, Arif Tabassum, Muhib Wazir, Raj Wali Khattak, Ahmed Fouad, Ahmed Rashid, Rashid Rehman, Sarwat Mohiuddin, Harris Khalique, Samar Minallah Khan, Anees Jillani, Taimur Rahman and Baela Jamil, Hamida Khuhro, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, Humayun Gauhar, Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, Ghazi Salahuddin, Babar Ayaz, Taimur Rahman, with Asif Farrukhi, Ali Aftab Saeed, Raza Rumi, Osman Khalid Butt, Omayr Aziz Saiyid, Beo Zafar and Nusrat Ali, Amjad Islam Amjad, Izhar ul Haq and Arfa Sayeda Zehra, Shaehryar Fazli, Tariq Rehman, Irshad Abdul Kadir, Ali Mahmood, Sultan-i-Rome with Rasul Bakhsh Rais and Humayun Gauhar, Aamer Hussain, Hameed Shahid, Asif Farrukhi, Shamsl Haq Usmani, Tehseen Firaqi, Nilofar Iqbal, Asim Butt, Mubashar Zaidi, Saeed Ahmed, Envar Fitrat, Ali Muhammad Farshi, Qasim Yaqoob and Azra Abbas, Riaz Khokhar, Zahid Hussain, Mohammad Amir Rana, Ashraf Jehangir, Qazi Nargis Sultana, Zafar Iqbal Cheema, Zulfqar Khan, AH Nayyar and Raza Rumi, Leyla Zuberi, Amjad Islam Amjad, Khawar Azhar, Seema Taher Khan and Shahid Nadeem, Humayun Gauhar, Riaz Khokhar and Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, Ameena Saiyid, Peter Upton and HM Naqvi.
