Passion for art and literature

The book lover Karachiites thronged the gardens and halls of Beach Luxury Hotel this year also to attend the annual Karachi Literature Festival (KLF), which has now become a regular gathering of writers, intellectuals, readers and general public who came to the festival for their craving of book reading and meeting the giants of literary world.
People got an opportunity to go through works of celebrated authors writing in diverse languages, genres and traditions. They meet and listen to some of the most eminent critics, writers and scholars of national and international fame at the event Every session of the three-day Karachi Literature Festival's eighth edition was planned as usual. A variety of presentations - the book launching and book signing ceremonies, addresses and Q&A from the authors, the panel discussion sessions, lectures, English and Urdu mushaira, the interaction with the intellectuals, workshops, performing arts, stand-up comedy, film screenings, literary awards and the book stalls were on the schedule. But this year the festival has extended the food court area to attract people, which had the biggest gathering of people during three-day festival other than literary events.
KLF was supposed to create space where cultural and intellectual people share their experiences and impart knowledge and understanding, both about today's world, ourselves, and our history and civilisation, and not only spread information but also question and debate critically our history and culture among ourselves and also with the outer world.
At the inaugural ceremony Ameena Saiyid, managing director of Oxford University Press (OUP) and director of the Karachi Literature Festival announced that the Karachi Literature Festival will be held at the Southbank Centre on 20 May 2017 in London to celebrate Pakistan's culture and literature and the 70th anniversary of its creation.
"The KLF is held to celebrate rich, ancient and diverse cultures and literatures of Pakistan so that they flourish and bloom and make an impact by becoming accessible to a wider public."
Having participants and visitors from all over the country, from all four provinces and all of our major cities, and also from other countries such as India, UK, USA, Germany, Italy, Bangladesh, and Maldives, the festival has became an international event through these years.
This year's festival included about 136 Pakistani and forty international speakers from ten countries who participated in different Q&A sessions, panel discussions and talks though out the event in total it comprised about 18 book launches, which ranged from novels to poetry collections to research work on eastern classical music and more than 70 sessions.
Launching of a collection of poetry "Teesra Qadam", the third book by Nasira Zuberi, a senior journalist and a media person was also part of the event.
Cultural sessions included: a panel discussion 'Pakistani Music: From Raagas to Rock', a session related to the movies 'Cinema across the Borders', a session about 'Cultural Heritage and Preservation in Pakistan and South Asia', and a session titled 'Phool aur Shabnam' have been dedicated to artist and showbiz luminary actress Shabnam. This session was one of the main attractions at the KLF 2017 as it was specially related to veteran actress Shabnam who came from Bangladesh to attend the festival.
A reader has an emotional attachment with the book and its author and this festival help readers interact with their literary heroes. Here they can see and meet them without the fan-star distance between them.
The keynote addresses by experienced people from their respective subjects vivified the atmosphere including eminent historian Ayesha Jalal, Urdu fictionist and travel writer Mustansar Husain Tarar, novelist and journalist Mohammed Hanif and American philanthropist Bob Sager and Pakistan's first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan's biographer Roger Long.
The KLF's primary objective of promoting the authors' books and fostering a love of literature and writing among Karachiites has been achieved in many aspects but still there is a long way to go for our people to understand and give the due importance to books. Although ours is the soil of art and literature since thousands of years but now we have forgotten our past and its time to revive our inborn passion and talent regarding books.