A stellar line up of brilliant minds at Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest 2021

Chandigarh, October 20, 2021: Mumbai’s acclaimed Literature Festival, Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest will continue its tradition of presenting leading personalities from among the world’s best authors, thinkers, writers, and artists for its 12th edition. The Festival, to be held from 18-21 November, will be conducted in a virtual format for the second year running, due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. This year’s Festival has been tightly curated to bring participants and audiences online for exceptional quality time.

As in previous years there will be an international stellar line up across literature, poetry, philosophy, science, business and the arts, including Amitav Ghosh, Salman Rushdie, Anne Enright, Steven Pinker, Nick Hornby, Shashi Tharoor, Indra Nooyi, David Baldacci, Ashis Nandy, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, Vidya Dehejia, Martin Kemp, Rebecca Solnit, Ruskin Bond,  Amish, Neena Gupta, Ashwin Sanghi, Matthew Weiner, Marlon James, Shobhaa De, Rutger Bregman, Amy Blakemore, Matt Haig, Heather Morris, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Dolly Thakore, Jonathan Drori, Hilary Leichter, Daniel Lieberman, Farah Bashir, Sanjena Sathian.

Viewers can also look forward to the traditional highlights of the Festival: the Lifetime Achievement Award to a distinguished literary personality; the presentation to the annual Poet Laureate; the Great Debate; daily performances including for children, and the prestigious Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest Literary Awards for the First Book and Book of the Year in the Fiction and Non-Fiction categories, Business Book of the Year, and Publisher of the Year.

The popular Little Festival for children, the first such of which was begun alongside the Litfest two years ago, will also take place simultaneously, as will a Campus Festival - a series of talks by participating writers for college students.

Tata Literature Live! Mumbai Litfest has always had a tradition of regularly introducing a new element. This year will see the Introduction to Indian Languages with a session each on Marathi prose and poetry, along with a performance in Marathi.

The 2021 Festival will be an act of tribute to its Founder & Founder-Director Anil Dharker who passed away in March 2021. He pioneered the concept of a Literary Festival for Mumbai and made it into an internationally known and respected forum through the depth and range of his knowledge and access, and his extraordinary efforts. The Festival will also salute the memory of Shashi Baliga, its Executive Director, who sadly lost the battle to COVID-19 in May 2021. She was its supporting frame and exemplary advisor.

Speaking about the Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest 2021, Director of the Festival, Amy Fernandes said, “The Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai Litfest is a much-awaited annual event. Despite the enormous challenges of the past 18 months, we have been able to maintain an unbroken series to announce its 12th avatar this year. This Litfest will be a poignant event for us, our associates, and our regular audiences, who will miss Anil Dharker and Shashi Baliga, but it will also be a matter of pride to mount a Festival that will meet the exceptional standards that they set. As we once again host world leaders in thought and word across a range of subjects, we would like to most sincerely thank the Tata group for their continued support and their belief in the enduring value of the Litfest.”

Harish Bhat, Brand Custodian, Tata Sons, said, “After the highly successful digital edition last year, we are ready to welcome everyone to the 12th edition of Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest, which will also be held in a digital format due to the current pandemic and will be accessible across the country and the globe. Literature and art have always stood as two strong pillars of elevating our community, and we believe that they will be even more important as we slowly regain normalcy from an unprecedented past 18 months. Once again, this year, the festival will bring together some of the most accomplished writers, artistes and intellectuals for meaningful conversations and debates, along with some stellar performances as well. We invite everyone to be a part of this brilliant line-up of events and hope to take forward the remarkable legacy left behind by Anil Dharker and Shashi Baliga.”