Ahmedabad International Literature Festival


The Ahmedabad International Literature Festival is an annual literary festival in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, every year. It is held every year in November or in December for two days. The Ahmedabad International Literature Festival was founded by Umashanker Yadav and is organized by the IKON Education Foundation.
The objective of the festival is to promote literacy, literature and bring together experts in the field. The festival invites established and emerging writers, publishers, journalists, academics, readers, and students from all over India and abroad. It played an instrumental role in determining the link between Gujarati, Indian, and international literature.

History

Umashanker Yadav and Pinki Vyas serve as directors of the festival.Anurita Rathore served as a festival curator for the first edition.The members of the festival's advisory board include Anil Chavda, Arthur Duff, Diti Vyas, and Vasant Gadhavi. The festival is open to the public.

Timeline

First edition

The inaugural Ahmedabad International Literature Festival was held on 12 and 13 November 2016, featuring 60 authors and speakers from various fields. It was inaugurated by Yogesh Ghadvi, Gujarati novelist Raghuveer Chaudhari, and British deputy high commissioner Geoff Wain. Some of the notable speakers were Madhur Bhandarkar, Piyush Mishra, Anuja Chandramouli, Anil Chavda, Vinod Joshi, and Chinu Modi. The festival hosted a session on 'Literature and Cinema' featuring lyricist and screenwriter Sandeep Nath and filmmaker Abhishek Jain.

Second edition

The second edition was held on 23 and 24 December 2017 at Ahmedabad Management Association. It featured around 80 speakers. The festival hosted several sessions, including Gujarati Cinema, Visual Presentation of Written Words, Old vs. New Gujarati Literature, and Popularity vs. quality of literature. Actor and television presenter Annu Kapoor was a featured speaker and commentator.

Third edition

The third edition of the festival, inaugurated by Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, was held on 24 and 25 November 2018 at , Ahmedabad, featuring more than 60 speakers including Vivek Oberoi, Harsh Brahmbhatt, and Vishnu Pandya. Around 7000 people attended this edition. For the first time, the festival launched a multi-language Kavi sammelan which featured poets from Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, French, Bengali, and English languages.

Fourth edition

The fourth edition of the festival was held on 16 and 17 November 2019 again at the Knowledge Consortium of Gujarat. Inaugurated by governor Acharya Devvrat, the festival hosted a total of 18 sessions with 60 speakers. Some of the notable speakers were Sushant Singh, Mallika Sarabhai, Kingshuk Nag, Frédérick Lavoie, and Gael de Kerguenec.