The Managing Director of Oxford University Press (OUP), Ameena Saiyid announced that the 5th Islamabad Literature Festival (ILF) will be held on 14, 15, and 16 April 2017 at the Margala Hotel, Islamabad.
The festival will feature a line-up of around 150 leading Pakistani and international authors, academics, journalists, and artists. “The ILF is about the promotion of books, authors, and reading and expression. The event has grown tremendously since its inception in 2013. Attendance rose from 15,000 in 2013 to more than 60,000 in 2016,” said Ameena Saiyid.
“The ILF provides a forum for local and international writers and readers to interact, exchange ideas, and engage in dialogue, debates, and readings”, she added.
Ameena disclosed that AG Noorani and Arfa Syeda would be the keynote speakers at the ILF inauguration while the closing ceremony would be addressed by Iftikhar Arif, Omar Shahid Hamid, and Nafisa Shah.
The number of sessions would be about 50; and speakers from around eight countries, including USA, Canada, India, Bangladesh, Italy, France, and Germany, would participate in the ILF.
Some of the prominent speakers at ILF are Raza Rabbani, Afrasiab Khattak, Aitzaz Ahsan, Akhtar Baloch, Abdul Sattar, Anwar Maqsood, Ali Akbar Natiq, Ashraf Jahangir Qazi, Amardeep Singh, Ataul Haq Qasmi, Blaine Marchand, Bushra Gohar, Charles Kennedy, Fasi Zaka, I. A. Rehman, Iftikhar Arif, Ishrat Hussain, Kaiser Bengali, Kishwer Naheed, Moeed Pirzada, Mohammed Hanif, Mujahid Barelvi, Nafisa Shah, Nisar A. Memon, Rehan Sheikh, Sardar Muhammad Masood Khan, Shabnam, Shahnaz Wazir Ali, Sarmad Khoosat, Sassui Palijo, Samina Ahmed, Sherry Rehman, Sultana Siddiqui, Taimur Rehman, Talat Masood, and Zehra Nigah.
Some of the exciting sessions planned for the ILF are: Judiciary and the Common Man; A Tribute to Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi; The Blood-Stained Dawn of Freedom; Social Media: The New Power of Words; Music and Today’s Technology; Small Screen Intimacy and Big Screen Splendour; Gender Violence, Law, and Power in Pakistan; Living through Seasons of Fear: Iftikhar Arif; and Uljhay Suljhay Anwar.
