Let us talk a little Lit...
Highlights from the first day of Hyderabad Literature Fest. We spotted royalty too.
The Maulana University was abuzz with a lot of activity on Friday with the opening of third Hyderabad Literary Fest.
After short inauguration by governor E.S.L Narasimhan, poet Sitakant Mahapatra, Md. Miyan and Chandana Khan, it was all business as usual.
While the Governor spoke about the “pen being mightier than the sword”, his speech also packed some shaayari. But it was Chandana Khan, Special Chief Secretary, who needed a little reminding that it was a lit fest, when she started on the “tour packages being offered 'in the building nearby”.
All that fun later, it was business as usual. While France is the guest nation at the event, the Indian Language in focus was Telugu.
The Telugu Panel that was moderated by the Director of the Department of Culture had K. Siva Reddy, J. Bhagyalakshmi, and C. Mrunalini, speaking about the poems, novels and short stories in Telugu literature. They also stressed the need to translate Telugu Literature to other languages to take Telugu to the world. While C. Mrunalini says, “While translation is very important, we suffer from translation politics. Where only people with a lot of money can translate their work, and while a poor man who has done considerably better work is left behind, we need a department that decides which book gets translated and which doesn’t.”