I really don't intend to write a detailed post about this year's Hyderabad Lit Fest, mainly because I was there but not very engaged, so I really don't have much to say.
But there was a few memorable things for me and they are as follows:
- For reasons I will not go into, Javed Akhtar acquired a copy of my book and began to read it - thankfully not aloud - as I watched. It was a moment of acute embarrassment for me made worse by a friend taking a photo of me in this state.
- Listening to Ahdaf Soueif, who was brilliant but who was interrupted rather rudely by the venue's emcee while she was answering audience questions; and who gracefully told her audience that we could continue the discussion outside the tent. The discussion went on for another hour and I had to leave reluctantly because I had a session to host.
- Book loot from the second hand book store!
Two Milosz - one a novel and the other a memoir, a good find given that Poland was the guest nation at this HLF. And look at the Beckett! and the Khair and Hughes!
There are some more books that aren't in these photographs but the two books that are making me crow with delight are the pre-Shakespearean Tudor plays and the Sidney's Defence of Poesy.
Please take a good look at the contents page of the plays. If you've ever studied Eng Lit, you'll have heard of Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's Needle but it is very unlikely that even a college library will have had a copy. I have those plays! I am so excited!!!
That's basically it about the HLF.
But there was a few memorable things for me and they are as follows:
- For reasons I will not go into, Javed Akhtar acquired a copy of my book and began to read it - thankfully not aloud - as I watched. It was a moment of acute embarrassment for me made worse by a friend taking a photo of me in this state.
- Listening to Ahdaf Soueif, who was brilliant but who was interrupted rather rudely by the venue's emcee while she was answering audience questions; and who gracefully told her audience that we could continue the discussion outside the tent. The discussion went on for another hour and I had to leave reluctantly because I had a session to host.
- Book loot from the second hand book store!
Two Milosz - one a novel and the other a memoir, a good find given that Poland was the guest nation at this HLF. And look at the Beckett! and the Khair and Hughes!
There are some more books that aren't in these photographs but the two books that are making me crow with delight are the pre-Shakespearean Tudor plays and the Sidney's Defence of Poesy.
Please take a good look at the contents page of the plays. If you've ever studied Eng Lit, you'll have heard of Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's Needle but it is very unlikely that even a college library will have had a copy. I have those plays! I am so excited!!!
That's basically it about the HLF.
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