The second annual Lahore Literary Festival took place Feb. 21, 22 and 23, 2014.
“LLF 2014 featured over 100 delegates from eight countries over three days,” said Razi Ahmed, LLF’s founder. “We scheduled book launches, readings, panel discussions, performances and exhibitions as part of this year’s festival to celebrate the best of Lahore’s varied and storied cultural traditions.”
Some of this year’s LLF guests included Kamila Shamsie, author of A God in Every Stone; Zia Mohyeddin; artist Shahzia Sikander; journalist Jugnu Mohsin; and many more. LLF 2014 featured several exciting panel discussions including on Lahore’s lost daughter, Amrita Sher Gil; scholar Pierre Alain Baud on Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Pakistan’s young new writers on creating fiction.
“We bring together new ideas and themes to the program each year,” said Ahmed. “This year’s program reflected our abiding commitment to present a well-thought and stimulating literary festival packed with intellectually-stimulating events in both Urdu and English.”
Said Nusrat Jamil, president of the LLF 2014 Advisory Committee: “This year’s program built on our success with the debut LLF and featured the finest of Pakistan’s talent and a lot more international representation.”
The LLF 2014 program was put together by this year’s Advisory Committee comprising Ahmed Rashid, bestselling author and award-winning journalist; Amna Naqvi, founder of Gandhara-art, a curatorial and art publishing organization; Aysha Raja, founder of The Last Word bookstores and cofounder of The Life’s Too Short Literary Review; Khaled Ahmed, author, and consulting editor, Newsweek Pakistan; Mohsin Hamid, critically-acclaimed novelist; Muneeza Shamsie, critic and former regional chairperson of the Commonwealth Writers Prize; Nusrat Jamil, former journalist; Salima Hashmi, internationally-acclaimed artist and educator; and Zareena Saeed, educator.
The LLF 2014 team included Adnan Siddiqi, Rimmel Mohydin, and Ayeda Iftikhar.
Last year’s debut event drew over 30,000 visitors and featured, among others, Tariq Ali, Bapsi Sidhwa, Ayesha Jalal, Mohammad Hanif, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Amin Jaffer, Lyse Doucet, Mohsin Hamid, Linda Bird Francke, Tehmina Durrani, Victoria Schofield, Jeet Thayil, William Dalrymple, Zehra Nigah. This year’s lineup was just as stellar.
Following the success of the debut LLF, our program of events was expanded from two days to three, excitement-packed days. We had some 100 local and foreign panelists discuss literature, journalism, politics, art, architecture, education and more at LLF 2014. We also scheduled book launches and signings, where audiences interacted with their favorite authors, and exhibitions—including from the Office for Conservation and Cultural Outreach (OCCO), and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Citizens Archive of Pakistan (CAP).
LLF is a free public event, and seating at all sessions is on a first-come, first-served basis. LLF is an independent, not-for-profit organization registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
