Hay Festival Dhaka
A November Delight
November brings one of the largest and prestigious literary celebrations in the Bangla Academy premises- The Hay Festival. It is a festival where many literature lovers congregate from all around the world and engage in a range of literary activities - talks, debates, recitals and informal interactions. The Hay Festival, Dhaka started its journey back in 2011 in a small scale with a pilot festival. The interactive sessions were highly appreciated all over the world which encouraged the organisers to take it to a grander level. In 2012 the event got bigger and including many world class writers and global thinkers as well as known and lesser known Bangladeshi writers and poets writing in Bengali and English.
Calling it one of the fastest growing festivals of our country, Sadaf Saaz Siddiqui, the producer of the event says, “We got absolutely amazed by the response and support from the whole literary community who helped to put forward this event. The international guests who attended the festival for the last two years were so delighted that they immediately committed to make their visit more frequent and regular. On the other hand, many of the audience and readers have marked it as one of their best days they have had in Dhaka.”
This year this three- day multilingual fiesta (from November 14 to November 16) is going to uncover a whole range of precious gifts for literature lovers. “This year the carnival is much bigger than the last year. We have four locations instead of three. We are promoting different themes like screen writing and graphic fiction. We have speakers and guests ranging from award winning big names to up-and-coming writing talents. Around fifty people from all around the world will be attending this festival. There will be writers, journalists, publishers and people from other literary festivals too,” says Sadaf Saaz.
One of the biggest aims of Hay is to take Bangladeshi writers and poets to global readers. “We possess a rich literary heritage and great contemporary writing in Bengali. But we should not limit ourselves to only Bangla literature, we should also feel confident to write in English. This year we have a couple of sessions on translating our work to foreign language where writing doyens will be demonstrating the tools and techniques of translating Bangla to English.”
Sadaf believes that we have gained the maturity and confidence to set our feet in the global literature. However we need to ensure that we meet global standards. The Hay festival is a step forward in that direction. “We need our audience and young writers to be exposed to the best writing, conversation and dialogue in the world. Hay festival strives to do so,” Sadaf says.
The festival offers a large array of a number of sessions for the audience to stimulate, inspire and celebrate world literature and Bangladeshi writing. “Selecting the content, inviting the guests and overall organising a successful festival requires intense planning and dedication,” Sadaf comments. "We aim to design a festival which can inspire and delight the attendees." she says. "Ideally we require a well paid huge team to organise such a big event. However, in reality Hay festival is the result of a small team who is doing it on a volunteer basis for their love of literature. The Hay organisers show their gratitude to the sponsors, as Sadaf says that the sponsors who have come forward have a corporate social responsibility which includes patronizing art and culture.
Like the past years, this year too, the Hay festival prides itself in showcasing many talented names from contemporary culture. “ We started working on this year's festival as soon as we finished the last one. We spend a decent amount of time in selecting the themes and topics for the sessions. Hay is designed in such a way that it could address the contemporary national and global issues. We choose themes that help to excel our thoughts and ideas forward and which are mostly relevant to today's Bangladesh. For instance, this year we have global thinkers like Tariq Ali and Pankaj Mishra who will analyze the turmoil that we are going through in our times,” Sadaf elaborates.
“We are dealing with a time where we are largely influenced by TV channels and bolliwoodisation,” says Sadaf. “This festival serves as a platform where young people can get indulged in the world literature and get the boost that we can do even better.” Hay festival is committed to bring out the love for literature in everyone living in the bustle of this city. To make this event accessible to everyone the organizers offer all the sessions free and open to the public.
“We are looking forward to making it a large-scale international festival of literature on an annual basis,” she explains. “We have the whole globe ahead of us. Our country demands English writers to improve their expertise to compete with the global standard. At the same time we need Bengali writers who are already creating excellent pieces to translate their work into other languages which can be accepted by book buffs around the world. Hay festival undoubtedly is playing a significant role in the process of putting Bangladesh in the world literary map. If we have a consistent festival every single year and if Hay could be marked in the global literary calendar saying that every November it is happening then we will be able to build our profile globally and thus we can get the access in the global readership." she says optimistically.
This year Hay brings in a treasure trove of interactive sessions, recitals, addas and presentations covering an impressive range of literary topics that includes short story writing, the challenges of translation, debut novels, the graphic novel, the influence of politics in fiction and non fiction and the use of dialects in writing. A large number of books and journals are being launched at this festival showcasing the works of Bangladeshis writing in English. Literary buffs will no doubt, be thrilled.
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