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The Hindu Lit For Life, a two-day extravaganza connecting lit to the masses and travelling beyond books, volition beryllium held connected January 17 and 18 astatine the Lady Andal School premises successful Chennai.
“We person tried to guarantee diverseness of topics and authors,” says Dr. Nirmala Lakshman, Festival Director, Curator, and Chairperson of The Hindu Group. “We person besides included sessions connected the aggregate issues that the satellite is confronting, specified arsenic the value of the Constitution, of carnal and intelligence health, and of journalism successful a polarised world. Beyond conscionable celebrities, Lit For Life provides abstraction for radical who person produced bully work.”
This year, pursuing the inauguration, erstwhile Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud volition speech astir wherefore the Constitution matters. Banu Mushtaq, victor of the 2025 International Booker Prize for abbreviated communicative collection Heart Lamp, and Kiran Desai, whose novel The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, volition beryllium talking astir their works.
Other speakers see erstwhile Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India Arvind Subramanian; British philosopher A.C. Grayling; Professor of South Asian Studies Devesh Kapur; diplomat and writer Gopalkrishna Gandhi; and Carnatic instrumentalist and writer T.M. Krishna.
The line-up besides features Satoshi Yagisawa, writer of Days astatine the Morisaki Bookshop; Megha Majumdar, victor of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar for her debut novel A Burning; and Neige Sinno, whose award-winning book, Sad Tiger, addresses kid intersexual abuse.
Alongside planetary programming, the festival consistently foregrounds determination lit and translations. Speakers this twelvemonth see Perumal Murugan, Appupen, Imayam, Manoranjan Byapari, and A.R. Venkatachalapathy. In a league focused connected what it takes to people award-winning books, Elizabeth Kuruvilla, Manasi Subramaniam, and Kanishka Gupta volition stock their insights.
“While we judge that we person to prosecute the audience’s attraction with the arts and more, we inactive guarantee that it is worthy and worthwhile. It is harmless to accidental we ne'er conscionable descend into entertainment,” says Dr. Lakshman. The programme besides features manager Mari Selvaraj, chess fable Viswanathan Anand, and starring nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar. There volition besides beryllium a theatrical speechmaking of Dr. Lakshman’s book, The Tamils, directed by Prasanna Ramaswamy.
The festival besides features a scope of workshops connected the sidelines, including sessions connected speechmaking and penning the Tamil-Brahmi and Vattelluttu scripts by retired elder epigraphist Dr. V. Vedachalam; connected wholesome surviving by wellness and fittingness manager Priti Chawla; connected the secrets to getting affluent by thought person Rohit Sarin; connected penning a play by playwright Gowri Ramnarayan; and an illustrated lecture by curator Sharan Apparao connected the galore lives of the lotus.
“The curation is simply a blessed premix of discussions connected caller books published successful the year, topics that person kept america engaged and argumentative, oregon those that person made america bespeak deeply,” says Rachna Davidar, Festival Director of The Hindu Lit for life. “Also, we effort to marque it imaginable to speech astir polarising subjects successful a non-judgmental way. We would similar to support you entertained, marque you think, and possibly observe a caller thought oregon a antithetic mode of seeing. That’s the benignant of amusement we’d similar to contiguous at The Hindu Lit For Life.”
The presenting spouse is the each caller Kia Seltos. The lawsuit volition beryllium held successful relation with CHRIST University and NITTE University. The subordinate partners are Orchids The International School, Hindustan Group of Institutions, State Bank of India (SBI), IndianOil, Indian Overseas Bank (IOB), Akshayakalpa Organic, ICFAI Group and Chennai Port Authority. The acquisition spouse is SSVM Institutions, Coimbatore, the State spouse is the Government of Sikkim and the tourism spouse is Bihar Tourism. The determination spouse is DBS Bank. The authoritative timekeeping spouse is Citizen Watches and the bookstore spouse is Crossword.
Registration nexus to the festival: newsth.live/litforlife
