The Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters was started in the year 2018. After the critically and popularly acclaimed staging of three editions, the pandemic disrupted this signature event in the cultural calendar of India. Now, 2023 will witness a rebirth with renewed vigour and vitality.
The capital of our home state of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, will host the latest version from 2nd to 5th of February. MBIFL ’23 will provide a platform where discussions on the arts, gender, history, media, politics, religion, science, sports, technology, and other contemporary issues will lend a spicy tang to four days and nights.
“A galaxy of universally renowned writers and speakers will grace this iteration, including last year’s Nobel laureate Abdul Razak Gurna and Booker Prize winner Shehan Karunathilake, from neighbouring Sri Lanka,” revealed Sabin Iqbal, Festival Curator.
“The theme of ‘Ka’, as it is known locally after the first consonant in our mother tongue Malayalam, is ‘Shadows of history. Lights of the future’,” said Mayura Shreyams Kumar, Festival Director. “We chose this particular trope, conflating it with our voyage through a century of rendering yeomen service to society”, the Director-Digital Business, Mathrubhumi added.
M V Shreyams Kumar, Chairman MBIFL, explained the rationale behind the festival of letters: “Being in the forefront of all progressive movements in our state, we deemed it incumbent on us to celebrate the role of letters in contributing to the moral arc of a nation, by conceiving the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters.” The Managing Director, Mathrubhumi, went on to say: “In our centenary year, it is also a tribute to the vision of my late father, the writer M P Veerendra Kumar, who guided our corporate fortunes for more than four decades, as the Chairman and Managing Director of Mathrubhumi.”