The annual Hyderabad Literary Festival (HLF) is scheduled to be held from January 25 at the Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet. This year the guest nation is China and the language of focus is Gujarati. Renowned Gujarati poet and the Padma and Sahitya Akademi awardee Sitanshu Yashaschandra would attend the festival.

Gujarati music and dance are distinguished by several folk-dance forms such as garba, dandiya and garbi danced only by men! At the HLF an evening of Garba will enliven the audience. Also watch for a rich mix of authors, film directors and poets who will be presenting in different realms of Poetry, Panels, Plenaries and Movies at the HLF 2019.

A delegation of six Chinese delegates will be present at HLF to mark their participation in different literature events such as Panels, Stage Talks, Workshops, Poetry Sessions and presenting Films. An exhibition of Chinese paintings and calligraphy works of Jidi Majia, Ge Shuiping, Guan Renshan and other artists will be displayed at the event.

A series of Stage Talks have been set for the ninth edition of the Hyderabad Literary Festival to be held between January 25 & 27. The stage will have International flavours and talks about art, music, theatre, literary, film, and other cultural topics. As part of these talks 'Cinema and the city: Hyderabad Through the Decades' will be conducted by Anant Maringanti.

This talk narrates the story of cinema’s association with Hyderabad and traces the trajectories through which the city’s life is entwined with the rural economies of the region producing a tapestry in which cinema and the city reflect each other.

Members if Australia Council for the Arts and Vice-Consul of Australian Consulate in Chennai Andrew Collister will also participate in the three-day festival.

This year HLF will have a new feature ‘Kaavya Dhaara’, which is an exclusive platform for stand-up poetry. About 10 hours of poetry in Mandarin, English, Gujarati, Telugu, Urdu will be recited by several poets.

This edition’s key speakers are actor Shabana Azmi; singer Chimayi Sripada; director Ketan Mehta; journalist Sandhya Menon who carried #MeToo movement on micro-blogging site Twitter; National Award-winner director Govind Nihalani; gay rights activist and poet Hoshang Merchant amongst others.