KARACHI: The 9th edition of Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) began at a local hotel here on Friday in Karachi.
While addressing the inaugural ceremony, Oxford University Press Founder of Karachi and Islamabad Literature Festival Managing Director Ameena Saiyid said that KLF, which was started in the year 2010, is the mother of all festivals in the country as it gave birth to literary, musical, film and theater festivals in Lahore, Hyderabad, Faisalabad and Gwadar.
Being impressed by the KLF, the Children Literature Festival was also arranged and more than 46 such kinds of festivals have taken place in the country, she said, adding that KLF is not the name of an event but it’s a struggle that brings academia, scholars and artists at one platform.
“KLF is like a smaller varsity which gives an opportunity to the rising stars of Pakistan to gather at one platform to test their vision and ideas”, she added.
Ameena further said KLF represents every segment of the society that exists in Pakistan. The purpose of the KLF, according to German Philosophy, is “More Light”, she added.
“KLF is open to all and it’s free where youth will get an opportunity to read out their poems and stories at the festival,” Ameena went on to say.
She said that the number of participants in the KLF has been drastically increasing as there were just 5,000 participants in KLF 2010 as compared to as many as 200,000 in KLF this year; there were 35 performers in 2010 only which has now inflated to 259.
The festival will host Kamila Shamsi to indulge her in a conversation on her newly launched novel Home Fire which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize- one of the most prestigious awards in the literary world.
Further, transgender activist Kami Chaudry and politician Nafeesa Shah be will a part of the panel to discuss the relevance of #MeToo Movement- a movement to highlight the prevalent sexual harassment of women specially at the workplaces.
Other than that, the festival will also feature discussions on the impact of fiction on politics, history of Sindhi Literature, the transition from the old to the new style of poetry and much more.
