Mumbai awaits literary carnival

Kiran Nagarkar, Nick Davies and Meena Kandasamy

Mumbai's big fat international literary festival is back. This year, too, the festival will host celebrated authors from the country and abroad. Vikram Seth, Kiran Nagarkar, Avirook Sen, Anuja Chauhan and Arun Shourie will be here among 120 writers and thinkers from 14 countries attending the three-day extravaganza.

(L-R) Kiran Nagarkar, Nick Daviesnd and Meena Kandasamy

Apart from talks, discussions and debates and an interesting performance arts itinerary, seven awards will be presented to celebrate outstanding works. These categories include First Book (Fiction and Non-Fiction), Book of the Year Award (Fiction and Non-Fiction), Business Book, Poet Laureate and Lifetime Achievement.

Seth, will be conferred with a Poet Laureate Award for "his efforts to keep the literary form of poetry alive" while Nagarkar, will be conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award on the final day of the festival. Seth, in his inimitable, mildly, humorous style has expressed his eagerness to be a part of the event. "Being a Calcuttan by birth and a Dilliwala by descent, Bambai meri jaan has always fascinated and puzzled me. So, it is with great pleasure that I look forward to going there (or is it ‘coming here'?). And having attended the Mumbai LitFest once before, I know that my usual nervousness when I speak or read (or am heckled) will be more than balanced by the pleasure of meeting other writers - and, needless to say, readers," he has shared.

Among the big names and events, the guide picks four powerful and interesting literary heads to look for. Meena Kandasamy: She is the fiery new voice in poetry and prose writing in India. Powerful, feminist and grounded in the caste reality of India, Kandaswamy has acquired plenty of admirers and haters from her Internet presence. She has published two collections of poetry, Touch (2006) and Ms Militancy (2010).

Siddhartha Gigoo: An author and filmmaker, he won the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Asia for his poignant short story, The Umbrella Man. He is the author of two books of fiction, The Garden of Solitude (2011) and A Fistful of Earth and Other Stories (2015), which was longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award 2015.

Nicholas (Nick) Davies: He is a British investigative journalist, writer and documentary maker who was responsible for one of the biggest stories in recent times - the uncovering of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World's phone hacking affair, including the July 2011 revelations of hacking into the mobile phone voicemail of the murdered schoolgirl, Milly Dowler.

Germaine Greer: The Australian academic and writer, is regarded as one of the major voices of the second-wave feminist movement in the latter half of the 20th century. Greer's ideas have created controversy ever since her first book, The Female Eunuch (1970), became an international bestseller, bringing her adulation and opposition. She is the author of several books about women, feminism, literature, art and the environment.