The Valley of Words Foundation Trust is a registered charitable Trust, established to support creative expressions across all genres through literature and arts festivals, debates, symposia, conversations, book launches, exhibitions, musicals, theatre, poetry cafés et al. Since 2017 the Trustees of VoW have organized four successful festivals in the picturesque setting of the Dehradun valley.
The fifth edition of the pan-India VoW, 2021, is being held across five cities this year, in a new ‘phygital’ mode designed to overcome the obstacles created by COVID 19.
VoW 2021 was flagged off from New Delhi on the 9th-10th of October with the first edition on ‘Military History and Strategy’ at USI. On the 22nd-23rd of October the historical city of Vadodara witnessed a two-day extravaganza based on Hindi Language, Fiction and Non-Fiction category.
This November, VoW has partnered with the Indian Chamber of Commerce and the iconic Bengal Club, Kolkata which will play host on 6th-7th of November to a two-day feast of books and ideas curated around the VoW Book Awards in the English Language, Fiction and Non-Fiction category along with five book launches. The Kolkata chapter will include city-based shortlisted authors from the Hindi Fiction and Translation categories as well.
Being a hybrid event, the team will be crossing geographical boundaries to connect the short-listed authors based in the USA, UK and Sweden, talking to city-based panelists.
The 6th – 7th November weekend will offer Kolkata’s booklovers a feast of subjects and points of view, new authors and seasoned veterans, perfectly suited to a city that loves to celebrate books, ideas, debate and discussion, covering women’s issues, history, art, visions of the future, crime, wildlife, poetry, translations and more. This hybrid festival will share virtual link-ins from across the country and the globe to enable the city’s participants and audience to interact directly with those who are not physically present.
All sessions will be recorded and shared from our YouTube within an hour. https://www.youtube.com/c/ValleyofWordsLitFest
SHORTLISTED AUTHORS/BOOKS
ENGLISH FICTION:
1. Lavanya Lakshminarayan: Analog/Virtual and Other Simulations of Your Future
2. Osman Haneef: Blasphemy
3. Sakoon Singh: In the Land of Lovers
4. Mahek Jangda: Sometimes Ivory, Sometimes Sand
5. Gautam Bhatia: The Wall
ENGLISH NON-FICTION CATEGORY:
1. Tripurdaman Singh: Sixteen Stormy Days
2. Sumathi Ramaswamy: Gandhi in the Gallery _ The Art of Disobedience
3. Ishtiaq Ahmed: Jinnah his successes, failures and role in History
4. Harsh Madhusudan and Rajeev Mantri: A New Idea of India
5. N S Vinodh: A Forgotten Ambassador in Cairo
In addition, Kolkata-based Alka Saraogi will be featured on the platform for her book Kulbhushan ka naam darj kijiye under the Hindi Fiction Category and Ranjita Biswas’s English Translation from Assamese, The Loneliness of Hira Barua will be highlighted. The authors will be in conversation with esteemed Kolkata-based panellists and moderators, a list of whom is as below:
Panellists and Moderators
Aatreyee Ghosh, cultural manager
Anita Agnihotri, IAS, award winning Bengali author
Anjum Katyal, writer, editor, Litfest Director
Avik Chanda, author
Debaroti Chakraborty, academic, Presidency University
Debashis Sen, Chairman and Managing Director WBHIDCO and NDITA, Additional Chief Secretary, Govt of West Bengal
Hridyesh Mohan, IAS, Principal Secretary, West Bengal
Jawhar Sircar, public intellectual, ex- sec of culture GOI, MP, Rajya Sabha
Karuna Ezara Parikh, novelist, poet, social influencer, activist
Krishnan Srinivasan, author
Kunal Sarkar, cardiologist, debater, writer
Monabi Mitra, academic, crime fiction writer
Nidhi Poddar, author
Oindrilla Dutt, Event Manager, prominent city personality
Paramita Saha, Director, Artsforward Ideas and Events
Prateek Raja, Gallerist, Experimenter Gallery.
Ramanjit Kaur, actor, Director, The Creative Arts Academy
Samrat Choudhury, journalist, author
Sanchayan Ghosh, artist, pedagogue
Sandip Roy, author and columnist
Sanjeev K Chadha, author
Sanjeev Chopra, policy analyst, Festival Director
Sukanya Mitra, academic, historian
Sunanda K Datta-Ray, senior journalist
Sunil Bhandari, poet, corporate executive
Suranjan Das, VC, Jadavpur Univ, historian
Sushil Poddar, author
Tina Servaia, senior teacher of history