The renowned Oxford Bookstore, which has been around for a century and is situated on Park Street in Kolkata, announced the highly anticipated fifteenth edition of the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival (AKLF).

The event was graced by Maina Bhagat, Director, of Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival, Anjum Katyal, Director, of Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival, Swagat Sengupta, CEO, of Apeejay Oxford Bookstores, and Neeta Sreedharan, Programming Head, Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival.

The festival is scheduled to take place on the 9th, 10th, and 11^th of February 2024, at venues like Allen Park, Alliance Française du Bengale, the Oxford Bookstore, and the Tollygunge Club.

The AKLF 2024 boasts an impressive lineup of speakers, with 126 eminent names like Abhijit Gupta, Anuja Chauhan, Alka Pande, Anita Agnihotri, Arshia Sattar, Aruna Chakravarti, Bickram Ghosh, Bittu Sahgal, Carina Rozenfeld, Chandan Gowda, Debkumar Mitra, Divrina Dhingra, Durjoy Datta, Gargi Rawat, Indrajit Hazra, Jerry Pinto, Kunal Basu, Louise Fowler-Smith, Maria Goretti, Meghna Pant, Monideepa Banerjie, P. Chidambaram, Pandit Kumar Bose, Pierre Bordage, Riddhi Sen, Ruchir Joshi, Ruchira Gupta, Sam Miller, Shaun Kenworthy, Somnath Batabyal, Sonal Ved, Srijato Bandopadhyay, Sudeshna Roy, Swapna Liddle, Swastika Mukherjee, Tara Gandhi, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Urvashi Butalia, Ushoshi Sengupta, Veer Rajwant Singh, Vivaan Shah are among others.

The festival will also have the virtual participation of prominent personalities like Dia Mirza, Lennie Goodings, and Priti Paul.

The names on the shortlist for the esteemed Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize will be revealed in this edition. With writers attending from Australia, France, the UK, and Singapore, this year’s edition also seeks to include a diverse range of views. The global viewpoint will enrich and deepen the literary debates by encouraging a cross-cultural conversation on a range of topics.

The Oxford Bookstore will host the Oxford Junior Literary Festival (OJLF), which promises to enthrall younger readers with interactive meet-the-author sessions, word games, storytelling sessions, and a dance workshop. Located at the Alliance Française du Bengale, the Poetry Café will offer a lively platform for poets, both seasoned and up-and-coming, to present their poems.

For more details, visit:  www.AKLF.IN

Priyanka Dutta