Rama Adhikari, TGT
Kathmandu, Dec 30
IME ‘Nepal Literature Festival’ underway in Pokhara has been anchoring interdisciplinary issues, encompassing various subjects of social, economic and political life, besides pure literature. Organized with physical presence of the speakers and virtual broadcast through different online gateways including Youtube and Facebook, the festival has also featured readers and literary enthusiasts of the younger generation, boosting the morale of the budding intellectual generation.
The Festival was formally inagurated on 29 December with a speech on the economy of literature, delivered by renowned economist Bishwa Poudel. Other events of the day featured Chandra Prakash Bainiya, winner of this year’s Madan Puraskar for his debut novel Maharani, in conversation with critic Raj Kumar Biniya on the ‘Politics of Maharani’. Avashna Pandey engaged Benisha Sharma, Aayushi KC and Sonika Manandhar on the ease and difficulty of working women in the Nepalese society, while Alok Siddhi Tuladhar conversed with Rabindra Puri and Milan Bagale and permutations of resources and habitations. Film critic and journalist Yagyash anchored a talk on the Nepali cinema in the corona era, featuring Bhaskar Dhungana, Min Bham and Priyanka Karki.
Swechchha Raut, in conversation with young talents Hari Khanal, Bikesh Kabin and Manushree Mahat explored various initiatives taken up by the younger generation to foster reading culture. The talk foregrounded the efforts by these youngsters, including library works and reading circles to attract their peers towards the culture of reading literature. Sobita Gautam conversed with physicians and medical professionals Dr. Anup Subedi, Dr. Anup Bastola and Dr. Rolina Dhital on different aspects of public health in the midst of corona pandemic. In one of the most gluing sessions of the first day of the festival, Roshan Mishra and Ilya Bhattarai evaluated their fathers, essayist and artist Manuj Babu Mishra and multi-generic writer Madan Mani Dixit respectively on their personal and literary lives.
The Festival scheduled to continue through December 30 is scheduled to take up various subjects including trade and commerce, environmental issues, federal imaginations, queer issues, musings of the youth and various dimensions of prose writing in Nepal. According to sources, the Festival will conclude on December 30.
On the eve of the festival, a ghazal recitation was organized, featuring Pradip Rodan and Amrit Subedi on 28 December.
Bookworm Foundation has been organizing Nepal Literature Festival every year to support literary discourse and foster reading culture.