After an entire year of anticipation, The Kalinga Literary Festival is finally back with its 8th edition to invigorate, educate, provoke and entertain. Around 300 celebrities from the worlds of literature, cinema, media and politics will assemble in the temple city of Odisha to commemorate this festival in the temple city of Bhubaneswar, from December 10 to 12. This year’s theme is going to be “India at 75: Commemorating the Republic of Letters.” The idea behind this year’s theme is to celebrate we will celebrate the 75 years of India’s Independence with literature, debate, discussion, discourse and performance. This festival will showcase the works of 60 artists from Odisha and across India.
On this glorious occasion, Mr Rashmi Ranjan Parida, the founder-director of KLF said that “Kalinga Literary Festival 2021 returns with the promise of hope and optimism. Our return emphasises resilience and the spirit of Rising. We are delighted to bring back the joy of the literary spirit to the temple city Bhubaneswar. We welcome our delegates & performers and look towards a great festival amidst all safety protocols.”
The Kalinga Literary Festival is an annual festival held at Bhubaneshwar every year, to celebrate the creative spirit of India and commemorate the literary diversity it offers, bringing it into conversation with the best minds in the world of literature within and outside of Odisha and India. This festival was started in the year 2014 to promote Odia language, literature, and culture, it is founded by journalist-writer Rashmi Ranjan Parida. Other team members include Prachee Naik and Sitansu Mahapatra. This Festival is well known for its socially relevant themes and in a way compels all ‘creative’ people to think and articulate ‘the contemporary’.
The key sessions this year will be on topics such as; textile and literature, democracy, cultural nationalism, Poetry recitation etc. Around 30+ new books and monographs will be released during the three-day festival. The delegates and speakers of KLF will have a unique opportunity to participate in Heritage Walk called Mystic Walk and participate in plantation and Mystic Mic. Esteemed Writers, poets, speakers and performers such as; Arun Kamal, Alka Saraogi, Mamta Kalia, Arunava Sinha, Pratibha Ray, Sitakant Mahapatra, Ramakanta Rath, Santanu Kumar Acharya, Haldhar Nag and many more, are likely to join. Prestigious awards in literature will be conferred in four vivid categories to the winners.
Kalinga Literary Festival (KLF) had announced KLF Book Awards 2020-21 in various categories — Non-fiction Book, Fiction book, Poetry etc. In that, 49 books were selected for the years 2020 and 2021. The winners will be felicitated and awarded during the annual Kalinga Literary Festival.
