Top writers, thinkers, artistes and intellectuals, including celebrated filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Bengali writer Subodh Sarkar, Jnanpith winner Pratibha Ray, art curator Bose Krishnamachari are among those who would converge at the three-day-long Gateway LitFest in Mumbai.
The fourth edition of the Gateway LitFest will be held in Mumbai from February 22-24 at the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) at Nariman Point here.
Acclaimed as the pioneering and the most prestigious event for language writings, Gateway LitFest will be the biggest gathering of women authors, bringing together over 50 renowned and upcoming women writers from over 17 languages, apart from another 20 top names in the literature and film fields.
Well-known authors writing in Assamese, Ahirani, Bengali, Bhojpuri, English, Gujarati,
Hindi, Khasi, Kashmiri, Konkani, Kosali, Malayalam, Marathi, Manipuri, Mythili, Odiya, Punjabi, Sindhi, Telugu, Kannada and Tamil will be attending the three-day literary jamboree.
"The last three editions saw the participation of over 200 eminent writers from almost all Indian languages to discuss, deliberate and share views on the latest trends in Indian literature, cutting across the languages. It is growing in size and status with every edition," said festival director Mohan Kakanadan.
Jnanpith winner Pratibha Ray (Odiya), filmmaker AparnaSen (Bengali), Shobhaa De, Nandini Sunder, Anju Makhija (English), Devika J, Indu Menon (Malayalam), Kanaka Ha (Kannada), Karthika VK (Tamil), Malika Amar Sheikh, Pradnya Pawar (Marathi), Nirupama Dutt (Punjabi), Patricia Mukhim (Meghalaya), Prof ChallapalliSwaroopa Rani (Telugu), TarannumRiyaz (Urdu) are among those women writers who will be present at the event.
The session on drama will have Prasanna Ramaswamy (Tamil), Rokeya Roy (Bengali), Pruva Naresh, Sanjukta Wagh (Marathi) and Malini Nair (Malayalam).
Books exhibition, poetry readings, networking events will add sheen to the event that will also discuss different trends in translation, reading habits, evolution of languages and involvement of women in theatre, among other topics.
As part of the central theme, an exclusive session will be held for seven young women authors, who were among the YuvaPuraskar award winners by the Sahitya Akademi in 2017.
Sessions on the new crop of women writers in English, autobiographical and bold writings by women, marginalised streams and translations will also be held this time.
"Each Indian language stream has a vibrant list of established and upcoming women authors who are popular in their own territories by their own merits. But at the national level, we don't celebrate their works and brilliance as we do in the case of those authors writing in English. This is an attempt to bring them to the national focus," said executive director Joseph Alexander.