The outbreak of COVID-19 has created its havoc in realm of human lives and Mumbai’s celebrated literature festival, which is now in its 11th year, has adopted a virtual format due to the pandemic.
The festival, which will also incorporate an entertaining Children’s Festival for two days, will be held for a week this time, with this edition hosting a formidable range of participants including this year’s Nobel Laureate Sir Roger Penrose; the father of modern linguistics Noam Chomsky; acclaimed authors Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, Lord Jeffrey Archer, Ruskin Bond, Amy Tan, Neil Gaiman, Howard Jacobson, Robert Harris, Sudha Murthy, Arun Shourie, Fareed Zakaria, Emma Donoghue, Peter May, Ashwin Sanghi, Amish, Shashi Tharoor, Shobhaa De, Farrukh Dhondy, Craig Brown; internationally known thinkers Michael Sandel, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Robin Dunbar, Henry Marsh, Christophe Jafferlot, Tom Friedman; former RBI Governor Dr. Raghuram Rajan; historian Ramachandra Guha; renowned cultural figures Javed Akhtar, T M Krishna, Sir David Hare, Naseeruddin Shah, and Miriam Margolyes.
The festival’s literary awards will be presented this year as well, for the First Book and Book of the Year in the Fiction and Non-Fiction categories, and the Business Book of the Year. The Lifetime Achievement Award to a distinguished literary personality, and the honouring of the annual Poet Laureate, will continue to be among the main highlights of the Festival.
