Hay Festival Dhaka, an international literary festival, is set to begin in the capital on Thursday, November 14 and will go on till Saturday, November 16.
At a pre-event press conference yesterday, Shamshuzzaman Khan, director general of Bangla Academy, Mahfuz Anam, editor of The Daily Star, Dr Kazi Anis Ahmed, writer, and Eshita Azad, head of arts at British Council Bangladesh, announced the agenda for the programme.
Co-producer of the event Sadaf Saaz Siddiqi was also present at the briefing.
During the briefing, Shamshuzzaman said this event was created for Bangladeshi writers to reach the English-reading audience, and expressed excitement at being able to be part of this process.
Kazi Anis Ahmed said: “We believe it [the Hay Festival] will build unprecedented links to the outside literary world.”
When asked, Sadaf told the Dhaka Tribune: “We decided to bring the Hay Festival to the people because it is important for us to be plugged into the global literary scene.”
She said: “We have a lot of maturity and confidence in our writers and writings, but they need a platform.”
The Hay Festival, playing on the theme “Imagine the World,” is going to be celebrated for the third time in Bangladesh. It was first launched in 2011 as a pilot project, when it was held only for one day and had about 1,000 attendees. Last year, it was a two-day event and featured international writers such as Vikram Seth and had about 10,000 attendees.
“This year, the mix is different. We have speakers from both political and literature backgrounds,” Iffat Nawaz, one of the organisers, told the Dhaka Tribune.
“What’s different this year is not only the intersection of literature and politics but also the intersection of words and images,” Sadaf told the Dhaka Tribune.
