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The curtains have fallen on this year’s Kovalam Literary Festival (KLF), one of the leading literary events in South India. The eighth edition of the literary fest kicked off with the K. C. John Memorial lecture by Carnatic vocalist and Magsaysay award winner Mr. T. M. Krishna. This year’s edition focused on non-fiction English writing from India. The one-day event saw several prominent writers engage in various discussions at the capital city.
In the session titled ‘Longing, belonging and ways of looking’, Mr. Bishwanath Ghosh, author of ‘Chai, Chai’ and Mr. Binoo K. John, author of ‘Curry Coast: Travels in Malabar’ had a conversation with journalist Mr. Suresh Menon, author of ‘Pataudi: Nawab of Cricket.’ This was followed by a session titled ‘War and Memory,’ where Mr. Raghu Karnad, author of ‘Farthest field - An Indian Story of the Second World War’ had a conversation with Mr. Suresh Menon. Ms. Rohini Mohan, who authored ‘The Season of Trouble: Life Amid the Ruins of Sri Lanka's Civil War’ interacted with art critic Mr. Sadanand Menon.
A conversation between Mr. Manoj Mitta, author of ‘When a Tree Shook Delhi’ on the 1984 riots in Delhi and ‘Fiction of Fact-finding’ on the 2002 Gujarat Riots, and Ms. Rebecca John followed. In the session titled ‘Royalty and Lineage,’ Mr. Manu Pillai, author of ‘The Ivory Throne: Chronicles of the Travancore Royal Family’ had a conversation with novelist Mr. Shreekumar Varma.
The festival closed with a talk on ‘The future of novel’ by writer Mr. M. Mukundan. The event held at VJT Hall in Thiruvananthapuram was supported by Kerala Tourism.