Curtains will come down on the Krithi International Festival of Books and Authors -2018 on Sunday night at Marine Drive, where the book fair drew huge crowds, including thousands of children, over the past 10 days.
A LitFest held at Bolgatty Palace from March 6 ended on Saturday. The success of the book fair, which presented the well-subscribed ‘one child, one book’ scheme with a view to making available to each of the visiting schoolchildren books worth ₹250, belied expectations.
The Sahithya Pravarthaka Cooperative Society (SPCS) and the State Cooperative Department, which organised Krithi-2018, had arranged stalls in a mammoth by well-laid out air-conditioned hall featuring international, national and small-time publishers with thousands of rare books. While there was bickering from some quarters on the rate of discount on offer at the stalls, the publishers who put up the stalls stayed happy, as books sold like hotcakes. While the fair hour was slated to end each day at 8 p.m., visitor inflow extended it by an hour daily.
Organised by government agencies, the professional conduct of the book fair came in for praise. However, the LitFest venue at Bolgatty Palace was less-crowded, thanks to its aloofness from the city and inadequate publicity. An organiser The Hindu spoke with said the intent was not to make the LitFest celebrity-oriented. The strategy worked in hindsight. While there were several celebs from different parts of the country, the discussions on literature, arts, and livelihood-related issues were in-depth, and a captive audience was present through the LitFest.
Discussions were held on a range of themes covering literature and writing to cinema, theatre, music, heritage, society, science, independent thinking, emerging technologies, agriculture, shelter, and health.
Minister for Cooperation Kadakampally Surendran had said that Kochi would be made the permanent venue for the fest subject to reception by the people. The organisers said they were hopeful of repeating the feat next year.
Performances
The arts fest held in the evenings witnessed some scintillating performances by stalwarts and upcoming artistes. On Saturday, Agam music band performed at Marine Drive.
At a discussion at Bolgatty Palace on contemporary short stories in Malayalam, it was agreed by everyone that the writers of the day could write without proclaiming allegiance to any literary school, theoretical dogma, or critical convention.
