LAHORE: The Pakistan Literature Festival (PLF), claiming to be the first-of-its-kind mega literary event of the country, is being launched from Lahore, the Unesco City of Literature, on Feb 10 with its inaugural edition happening at the Alhamra Art Centre.

Lahore has got the honour to host the inaugural edition of the three-day litfest, being organised by the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, that’s going to travel across Pakistan and abroad in the coming months.

“Lahore is the city where the Pakistan Resolution was passed and where Allama Iqbal lived. It’s at least 1,000 years old and has been a centre of Urdu for the last three centuries. That’s why we are launching the Pakistan Literature Festival from here,” says Ahmed Shah, the president of Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, while talking to Dawn. Suitable weather conditions are another reason for launching the litfest in the city where spring has set in.

He reveals that after Lahore, he has a plan to take the PLF to all the big metropolitans and cities of the country, including Islamabad, Peshawar, Karachi and Quetta. Not only that the litfest would be held in Muzaffarabad and Gilgit-Baltistan too before being taken to America, Canada, the UK and Dubai, says Shah who has successfully held the International Urdu Conference in Karachi for the last 15 years. He claims that the conference has revived the love for Urdu language and literature, especially in the younger generations of the country.

Coming back to the significance of Lahore, he says that even in the Urdu conference that’s held in Karachi, 80pc of writers come from Lahore, Punjab or Islamabad. In the litfest, four icons of Urdu poetry having connections with Lahore and Punjab, namely Faiz Ahmed Faiz, N.M. Rashed, Majeed Amjad and Miraji, would be discuss while there would be a grand Mushaira too.

The PLF Lahore edition will not be limited to literature and books only as there would be something for people from every walk of life concerts of Ali Azmat, Ali Zafar, Saeen Zahoor, Sahir Ali Bagga and Jatt Brothers have also been made a part of the festival to attract wider audiences.

Ahmed Shah says that at the start of the Urdu conference, it was hard to bring people towards it and it had to be made diverse and inclusive with addition of music, dance performances and paintings and the same would happen in the PLF.

“In the Lahore edition, along with Urdu there will be also be sessions in Punjabi and Seraiki too, in Peshawar edition, sessions will include those of Pashto and Hindko, in Gwadar, it will be Balochi and Barahvi,” says Shah while adding that the regional languages would also be highlighted and focused in all editions of the PLF.

He adds that universities and colleges of Lahore have been engaged in the PLF to include the young people in the activity that would continue for three days with four sessions happening simultaneously in the halls of Alhamra Art Centre.

Shah says that the litfests happening in the city of Lahore or anywhere else have a certain audience while the PLF would offer something for everyone, claiming that he does not hold conferences or festivals for the elite but the public at large. “All the sessions and concerts of the big stars are free for the public and nothing is ticketed as happens in some events,” he asserts, inviting people to join in the activity at the weekend.

Besides the writers and artists mentioned above, the PLF schedule includes the writers like Mustansar Hussain Tarar, Zehra Nigah, Zia Mohyeddin, Iftikhar Arif, Anwar Maqsood, Amjad Islam Amjad, Bushra Ansari, Shan, Hamid Mir, Suhail Warraich, Asma Shirazi and Mazhar Abbas. The schedule includes a paintings exhibition, art and craft festival, book launches and book fair and food festival as well.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2023