Ppular family feature magazine Kadambini has been hosting its annual literary festival for the past eight years in Bhubaneswar and that’s not a mean feat. And the Patrika Haat that the festival incorporated three years ago, has all the more added to the excitement.
The festival hosted this year on KIIT University campus on Sunday featured a writers’ meet, a seminar on the works of the literary genius Santanu Kumar Acharya, release of books, exhibition of about 200 magazines by the respective publishers and a presentation by the humour and satire writers.
The major attractions of this year’s festival were Jnanapith awardee icnonic Hindi writer Kunwar Narayan and Indo-Canadian-African writer M.G.Vasan besides legendary Oriya cine actress Mahasweta Roy. While Narayan emphasised on experimentations in literature in his address to the literary gathering, Vasan, the writer of Indian origin who was born in Kenya and based in Canada deliberated on globalization of contemporary literature. And in the versatile actress, the daughter of late legendary writer Raj Kishore Roy, the listeners discovered a sensible commentator of literature. Mahasweta’s address was a comparative commentary on cinema and literature.
An anthology of Kunwar’s poems translated into Oriya by Khirod Parida and Kadambini editor Iti Samant’s book on Kathare Kathare Upanyasare Nari Charitra were also released.
The seminar on Santanu Kumar Acharya, who was conferred the Kadambini Saraswat Samman for the year, was focused on the fictions of Acharya.
Prakash Mohapatra and Arabinda Ray, both known and contemporary literary writers, presented their papers on Acharya’s short stories.