The twelfth iteration of LLF takes place February 23-25, 2024, at the Alhamra Arts Center on the Mall in Lahore.
LLF annually brings together some of the leading writers, poets, artists and scholars from across Pakistan and abroad for engaging, stimulating and thought-provoking conversations and panel discussions. Since 2013, we have hosted in Lahore two Nobel Prize winners, Orhan Pamuk and Abdulrazak Gurnah; and Booker Prize winners including Ben Okri, Damon Galgut and Shehan Karunatalika. Eminent Pakistani writers, Intizar Hussain, Bapsi Sidhwa, Ayesha Jalal, Abdullah Hussein, Amjad Islam Amjad, Zia Mohyuddin, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Kamila Shamsie, Muhammad Hanif, Fatima Bhutto, H.M. Naqvi, Ahmed Rashid and many more have taken part in the multiple iterations of LLF over the decade.
Included among #LLF2024 speakers are Joseph Massad, a Palestinian academic and author of Islam in Liberalism; Lynette Viccaji, an educator and author of Bubbles; Monica Ali, one of Britain’s best-known contemporary fiction writers; Saleem Ali , author of Soil to Foil: Aluminum and the Quest for Industrial Sustainability; Dur-e-Aziz Amna, author of American Fever, which won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature; Tanveer Anjum, a Karachi-based Urdu poet; David Sedaris, an acclaimed American essayist and humorist; Alejandro Vergara, senior curator of Flemish and Northern European paintings at the Museo del Prado in Madrid; Jose Luis Peixoto, a celebrated contemporary Portuguese writer whose work has been translated into 30 languages; Dominique Sigaud, journalist and author of Somewhere in a Desert; Kenize Mourad , former journalist, author and great granddaughter of Ottoman Sultan Murad V; and many more.
The twelth edition of the LLF will also feature performances, book signings, and several art exhibitions, including a retorspective show of Salima Hashmi’s art.
The results of the second LLF-British Council Writing Prize would be unveiled during the opening ceremony.
LLF is proud of its partnerships with, among others, the Dawn Media Group, Serena Hotels, EU Delegation in Islamabad, British Council Pakistan, Embassy of Portugal, Embassy of Spain, Embassy of France, Annemarie Schimmel Haus Lahore, and AG. This year, LLF is also celebrating a cultural partnership with London’s leading literary festival, the Wimbledon Book Festival.
One of the highlights of the festival this year, in partnership with the Mohatta Palace Museum, is a finale session, Magical Epics, exploring the rich tradition of storytelling in the Persian and Urdu traditions. Scholars Shahnaz Aijazuddin and F.S. Aijazuddin will be reading and contextualizing the Tilism-e-Hohruba and Hamzanama.
From left: Alexandra Pringle, Ahmed Rashid, Nadifa Mohamed, Damon Galgut, Louise Kennedy and Abdulrazak Gurnah #LLF2023
Organized as a nonprofit, LLF is a must-attend event on the international literary calendar and has been acclaimed by the foreign press, including, among others, The New York Times, BBC, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Time, The Guardian, Al Jazeera.
LLF has also showcased Pakistani authors and artists at its annual events in New York, with Asia Society, and in London, with the British Library. LLF’s efforts over the years led UNESCO to designate Lahore as a City of Literature in 2019.
The full schedule for the three-day event can be downloaded or viewed below (updated on Feb. 23):
LLF2024 Program
