BENGALURU: Bibliophiles in Bengaluru have yet another weekend with books. Lekhana, a three-day fest will bring together the city’s literatti who will discuss language and its nuances in an intimate setting. According to Poorna Swami, organising committee of Lekhana, the event was started to bring together the city’s different literary worlds – to converse, share ideas, and listen. “Over the years, Lekhana has featured writers of different languages from within Bengaluru and beyond,” she says.
This year, the fest features a range of voices, including local and international writers. With the theme ‘The Refracted Self’, the organisers are “focusing on autobiographies, memoirs, and texts that deliberately rupture and fragment the self.” While writer Shashi Deshpande will speak about her new memoir, Listen to Me, a tribute to Girish Karnad, a stalwart in the literary world, will also be held. The weekend concludes with Ramachandra Guha speaking on Gandhi’s autobiography. “The international writers we have are Allison Amend and Prince Shakur from the US and Rayji De Guia from the Philippines. This year, Lekhana is also very intimate and will take place at the residency space The Jamun and Bangalore’s new bookstore, Champaca. It will be a small but vibrant weekend,” assures Poorna.
several literature fests having cropped up in the city, Poorna is clear that they don’t belong to the lit fest category. “This is something we are very clear about. We call ourselves a ‘literary weekend’ because really, Lekhana is moment for writers and readers to gather. It’s not a ‘festival’ in the conventional sense. The programming is not driven by the market and what the latest book releases are. Instead, all the events highlight different writers, texts and discourses,” she says.
Lekhana 2019 will be held on November 29, 30 and December 1. Some of the speakers this year are Ramachandra Guha, Allison Amend, Somak Ghoshal, Prince Shakur, Indira Chandrasekhar, Rayji de Guia, Poorna Swami, Tanveer Ajsi, Kusum Dhar Prabhu, Manan Kapoor, Deepa Ganesh, Padmavati Rao, Arshia Sattar, and Ajay Krishnan. While day 1 will be held at The Jamun, RMV II stage, day 2 and 3 will be held at Champaca, Edward Road.