Hyderabad Literary Festival Kicks off From Jan. 16–18

The second edition of the three-day Hyderabad Literary Festival will kick off on January 16, 2012 at Taramati Baradari. Famous Indian lyricist Gulzar will be one of the highlights of the three-day event that winds down on January 18.

Around 80 participating authors from across India, along with a couple of foreign writers, will be attending the festival that is open between 10 am and 5.30 pm. Names like Mark Tully, Kiran Nagarkar, Adil Jussawala, Amish Tripathi, Narendra Luther and Saeed Mirza are among participants attending the upcoming event.

Of the participating authors, around 15 are from Andhra Pradesh. The foreign writers attending the fest are Christopher Kloeble from Germany, Switzerland's Urs Widmer and France-based authors Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier.

Conversations with writers, panel discussions, dialogues between authors on various subjects, readings, film screenings, workshops for school children and competitions for college students are some of the programs that have been planned as part of the festival.

Triotonos, a German band, is performing on the day one with recitals by Thumri singer Vidya Rao and Bharatnatyam dancer Ananda Shankar Jayant the following day.