Lit season begins

In a few days, the Kovalam Literary Festival begins, and with it, it's Lit season. Several book awards follow (Crossword Book Awards, the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize), then there's the Literature Live festival in Bombay at the end of the month, and the Times of India's Literary Carnival should follow at some point in December, if last year's dates are any indication, as should the Goa Arts and Literary Festival. The big daddy, the Jaipur Literature Festival is at the end of January, the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, which also has a literature sub-festival, is usually in the second week of February. At some point, there's usually a Calcutta festival, and I've heard rumours that something was up in Madras too. And, yes, Bangalore.

The Kovalam Literary Festival (October 6th and 7th) features Binayak Sen, Farrukh Dhondy, NS Madhavan, Nilanjana Eoy, CP Surendran, Naresh Fernandes and Sonia Faleiro, among others, as well as a performance by Indian Ocean.

Literature Live (its name once prefaced by "The Times of India" before a rift in the lute gave the Gateway City three lit fests instead of two) has VS Naipaul as its big draw this year (he is to receive the Landmark Lifetime Achievement Award), and will also feature, among others, Shashi Tharoor, Shobhaa De, Ashok, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Ranjit Hoskote, Gieve Patel, Arundhati Subramaniam, Marianne Pearl (her book about her husband Daniel Pearl was made into the film A Mighty Heart), and the Pakistani writers Mohammed Hanif and Moni Mohsin. The fest's press release also promises a lot of non-literary entertainment, as well as the declaration of the winner of the Tata First Book Award.

More when we see actual schedules. And coverage if we can get the boss to send us to all of them!

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