Asia's largest three-day international literary festival 'Unmesh' will be held in the Bhopal city of Madhya Pradesh from August 3 to 6, 2023.
Addressing a press conference, Sahitya Akademi Secretary K. Srinivasrao said that 'Unmesh' is India's most inclusive literary festival and it is not only Asia's largest literary festival in terms of representation of the number of languages but it is soon on its way to becoming the world's largest literary festival.
He further said that in every edition of 'Unmesh', they try to add new topics so that a new set of writers get an opportunity to participate in the discussions and their creativity gets new directions.
Along with this international literary festival, a national festival of folk and tribal performing arts titled 'Utkarsh' will be also organized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi.
Both these events will be inaugurated by the President of India, Smt. Droupadi Murmu. Governor of Madhya Pradesh Shri Mangubhai Patel, Chief Minister Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Minister of State for External Affairs and Culture Meenakshi Lekhi and Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Culture Smt. Uma Nanduri will also be present on the occasion.
The festival will be organized jointly by Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, Ministry of Culture, Government of India and Department of Culture, Government of Madhya Pradesh.
More than 575 authors from 100 languages are expected to participate in more than 75 events at the International Literary Festival Unmesh. Apart from India, writers from 13 other countries will also participate in the festival.
It may be noted that this is the second edition of 'Unmesh'. The first event was held in Shimla in June last year.
At the International Literature Festival, apart from the multilingual story and poetry recitation, there are many other topics that will be discussed for the first time.
These topics include Literature of Physicians, Ocean Literature, Rise of Machines - Authorless Literature, Creativity-enhancing education and Translation among others.
Other important topics to be discussed are: Indian poetry, Indian devotional literature, cultural heritage of India, unity in diversity, cinema and literature etc.
Important writers, scholars, journalists, translators, publishers, cultural workers, theater workers, filmmakers from India and abroad will be participating in this International Literary Festival.
Moreover, the Governors of three states - Governor of Kerala Arif Mohammed Khan, Governor of Chhattisgarh Biswa Bhushan Harichandan, and Governor of Telangana State Tamilisai Soundararajan will also be present.
Fiji's Ambassador to India, Kamlesh Shashi Prakash, besides S.L. Bhyrappa, Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit, V. Kamakoti, Chandrashekhar Kambar, Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari, Sanjay Roy, Jayanta Mahapatra, Oscar Pujol, Tulasi Diwasa, M.A. Alwar, Suresh Goyal, Girishwar Misra, Chitra Divakaruni, Vishnu Dutt Rakesh, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Linda Hayes, Mami Yamada, Amish Tripathi, Sonal Mansingh, Chitra Mudgal, Raghuveer Chaudhari, Mamta Kalia, Mahesh Dattani, Waman Kendre, Prayag Shukla , Surjit Patar, Navtej Sarna, Vishwas Patil, Namita Gokhale, Mahendra Kumar Mishra, Sheen Kaaf Nizam, Vasamalli K., Arun Kamal, Govind Mishra, Leeladhar Jagudi and Usha Kiran Khan etc. will also be present.
Meanwhile, artists from Madhya Pradesh and other states will participate in the colorful programs that will be held every evening in the National Festival of Folk and Tribal Performing Arts organized by Sangeet Natak Akademi.
Books from Sahitya Akademi and other literary institutions will also be available for sale at attractive discounts during the festival.
