CHENNAI: Queer Chennai Chronicles announces the fourth annual Chennai Queer LitFest between September 18 and 24. This year’s ianugural and keynote speech will be delivered by member of the Tamil Nadu State Development Policy Council, Padma Shri and Kalaimamani recipient Narthaki Nataraj.
The conversation this year will also focus on the oral history of Tamil speaking trans women community from India and the diaspora. The session will be led by writer and vlogger Thanuja Singam with author, theatre artist A Revathi and Suryani Mahmood from Malaysia who currently resides in Germany. The focus will also be on storytelling. Theatre artist, Living Smile Vidya will be in conversation with actor-writer Shoba Shakthi related to queerness in his writings and in Tamil literature in general. A discussion with author Sindhu Rajasekaran and independent filmmaker Divya Barathi will focus on gender and sexuality in their medium of storytelling.
The premiere year of the Queer LitFest in 2018 had a session on media representation and this is an ongoing discussion as media plays an important role in highlighting our issues and lives. This year there will be a discussion on best practices in media reporting. Ragamalika Karthikeyan, editor, Special Projects & Experiments at The News Minute and Ranjitha Gunasekaran, assistant resident editor, Tamil Nadu at The New Indian Express will lead the discussion.There will also be an interaction about creating spaces and how it has impacted the community during these times. A discussion on queer terminologies and fan fiction are in the pipeline.
This year’s theme is Ongi Olikkum Kuralgal. The LitFest will be held online and will be an audio-only affair. The focus is to be solely on queer voices. The voices that refuse to back down and be unheard. The fourth annual Chennai Queer LitFest 2021 Live will be held on Twitter #TamilSpaces. The session timings, the complete speaker details, and more information related to the festival will be released in the days leading the to the Queer LitFest.