English litterateurs rendezvous in Sri Lanka

Leading lights of English literature from across the globe are meeting in the quaint Dutch-built city of Galle for a four-day bonanza of lectures, readings, panel discussions and book launches. About 600 participants, including 50 from overseas, converged on Galle Wednesday.

Among the leading figures at Galle this year are Gore Vidal, Vikram Seth, William Dalrymple, Simon Winchester, Shyam Selvadurai, Nuri Vittachi and Carl Muller. Sohba De opted out at the last minute.

The Galle Literary Festival has come to stay because it has already made a mark internationally.

“The attendance and the quality of the programmes had been so good last year, that Harper’s Magazine had immediately voted it the number one literary festival among six such festivals across the English speaking world,” said Libby Southwell, the festival director.

In just one year, it had been placed alongside the Hay Festival in Columbia and the Wexford Book Festival in Ireland, observed Red Dot, a Sri Lankan travel agency with a British link that promotes the festival.

This year, there would be 70 events including film shows and children’s programmes. There is also an educational side to the festival, which is perhaps unique. One of the main aims of the Galle festival is to spread the English language among the rural and under-privileged children in Sri Lanka who have no access to it.

IANS