9th Pune International Literary Festival Dates: December 21st to 23rd 2021 Mode: Online -

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Pune city’s first and the only free festival of English Literature; the Pune International Literary Festival (PILF) will take place from December 21^stto 23^rd. This is the 9^th edition of the festival and it would be held online for the second consecutive year, due to COVID19 pandemic. Dr. Manjiri Prabhu, the city-based acclaimed novelist is the festival founder and Director.

The festival is being organised with support from Vishwakarma Publications as the Title sponsors, along with many other partners. Access to the festival sessions is free.

“The basic objective of the festival is to celebrate the ‘Word’ in all forms, to facilitate a direct connect between authors and the readers and to create an inspirational platform for all creative people – at all levels of their careers, thereby promoting the culture of knowledge-based reading and learned appreciation of various arts and craft. Our partnership with Crossword Bookstores is now in its 9^th year and the Salzburg Global Seminar has continued into its sixth year. Our other partners are Goethe Institute, US Consulate Mumbai with notable participation from publishers like HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Om Books International, Juggernaut, Speaking Tiger, Westland, Readomania, Amaryllis, Oxford Bookstores, Sage Publishing and others.

We are happy to announce that we have an impressive line-up of international Authors and Speakers from Ireland, Australia, Spain, Italy, UK, USA and around the world like: Cecelia Ahern, Alexandra Pringle, Carl A. Harte, Dr Mark Aldridge, Helen Smith, Liz Nugent, Mariah Fredericks, James Ziskin, Sam Blake, Stefano Pelle, Sujata Massey, Vicki Satlow, Ricardo Fayet, Elizabeth Kracht, Janet Rudolph and others.

The Indian Speakers include: Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Mira Nair, Remo Fernandes, Guru Thakur, Nayantara Sahgal, Shobhaa De, Bharat Dabholkar, Sidharth Jain, Ashwin Sanghi, Dr Alka Pande, Prof. Upinder Singh, Ashok Banker, Dr Manjiri Prabhu, Manu Pillai, Raju Parulekar, Lt. Gen Satish Dua, Sameer Soni, Ananth Mahadevan, Kulpreet Yadav, Shatrujeet Nath, Mona Verma, Dr. Mickey Mehta, Ravi Shankar Etteth, Kiran Manral, Rishi Sethi, Bevinda Collaço, Rashmi Joshi, Rishi Suri, Tuhin Sinha, Salil Desai, Akhilesh Mishra, Madhulika Liddle, Nitin Sethi, Dr. Ajay Gupta, Dr. R.Raj Rao, Vanita Kohli Khandekar and many more.

Some sessions are dedicated to this year’s Social Theme ‘The Golden Years’. We have structured a unique festival this year too, with a lot of variety and diversity in its schedule.

Other highlights are

Wisdom Bytes – Opinion pieces from respected experienced global voices like Dr. Jane Goodall, Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Ana Aga, Anita Moorjani, Narayan Murthy and Ganesh Natarajan will help us understand ‘What the World Needs Today’ and guide us in the right direction.
Two-minute pieces from ‘Featured Authors’ talking about their latest books.
‘Why Buy My Book’ is an opportunity for debut authors to pitch their books to readers.

We have over 150 Speakers, 70+ sessions taking place in 3 different online studios

We have planned a great variety of sessions like:

Yours Truly: A separate Session each with Cecelia Ahern, Mira Nair, Kabir Bedi, Remo Fernandes and Guru Thakur
Mysteries – The Enigma and the Intrigue – James Ziskin, Manjiri Prabhu, Liz Nugent and Janet Rudolph
Putting a Face to India’s Farm Crisis – Kavitha Iyer, Jaideep Hardikar, Dnyaneshwar Bodake and Rakhee Bakshee
Conversations on a cozy winter Evening – with Nayantara Sahgal and Devaki Jain
Women – the Soft Power–with Swapnil Pandey, Capt. Manisha M. Puri and Kena Shree
Reimagining the Maharajahs: Princely India and its Tales – Dr. Alka Pande in conversation with Manu Pillai
The Fine Line between Fantasy and Horror with Neil D’Silva, Alisha Kirpalani and Mayur Didolkar
My Journey with Agatha Christie- Helen Smith in conversation with Dr. Mark Aldridge (Agatha Christie Historian and Author)
Soumitra Chatterjee: A Filmmaker Remembers – Somak Ghoshal in conversation with Suman Ghosh
The Art of Writing for Children – Ashok Banker, Stefano Pelle and Vibha Batra
Phenomenal Women in International Politics – Supriya Vani and Carl Harte (Jacinda Ardern: Leading With Empathy) Chidanand Rajghatta (Kamala Harris: Phenomenal Woman’) and Kena Shree
Mytho–Fantasy or Mytho- Reinterpretation? – Kavita Kane, Shatrujeet Nath, Koral Dasgupta and Mona Verma
Brave Hearts of the Country – Mrs. Geetanjali Joshi in conversation with Kulpreet Yadav and Lt. Gen. Satish Dua
Shakti – The 51 Pithas-Master Class on Art & Culture with Dr.Alka Pande
As mentioned earlier, the sessions ‘Why Buy My Book?’ are for new authors to talk about their book.
Literary Agents – Bridge or Barrier? Vicky Satlow (Vicki Satlow Literary Agency) Elizabeth Kracht (Kimberley Cameron & Associates Literary Agency) Suhail Mathur (The Book Bakers) Moderated by Dipankar Mukherjee book.

“We request the media representatives and thereby the people of Pune to refer to the entire schedule to pick and choose the sessions of their preference from a wide array of choice. The Schedule is being published on the website www.pilf.in.