The High Commission of India in Singapore is organising the first-ever India-ASEAN Writers Festival in Singapore.
2018 is the 25th year of friendship between India and ASEAN and the High Commission is celebrating it with multiple events as the ASEAN India Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (Overseas Indians Day). The festivities will be held on 6-7 January at the Marina Bay Sands.
One of the marquee events at the festival is the PBD Writers Festival, which has been programmed and organised by Kitaab International (Kitaab), a Singapore-headquartered publishing and events company, on behalf of the High Commission of India in Singapore.
"The Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Writers Festival 2018 celebrates the literary ties between India and the ASEAN nations. It showcases the literary talent of ASEAN - writers and poets who have contributed to building a common literary heritage across the nations," said Zafar Anjum, Programme Director and founder and CEO of Kitaab, Singapore.
More than 30 writers from ASEAN are participating in this two-day festival. Professor Edwin Thumboo, the doyen of poetry in Singapore, will be delivering the keynote address. Literary luminaries Suchen Christine Lim, Isa Kamari, PN Balji, Chris Mooney-Singh, Marc Nair, Krishna Udayasankar, Clara Chow, Desmond Kon, Jayanthi Sankar and Elavazaghan Murugan are some of the prominent authors who will be participating in the festival.
India, with 22 officially recognised languages and a history of over 3,000 years in written literature, possesses “the single most complex and continuous multilingual tradition of literature in the world,” according to Dr Sheldon Pollock, a Sanskrit scholar and editor of the Murty Classical Library of India (MCLI).
Through millennia, India has been a source of inspiration for culture, art, architecture and literature in countries belonging to the present-day ASEAN. Thanks to contact with Indian civilisation, Southeast Asia has created many literary works inspired by Indian culture, says Kitaab.
Sanskrit scripts are the first form of writing known to have reached Southeast Asia, and have influenced the choice of the alphabets adopted for local languages in Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. A large number of ancient inscriptions which have been discovered in these region are in Sanskrit, and the Indian classic, the Ramayana, has inspired literature in this part of the world.
Kitaab points out that only culture can nurture and build a sense of being part of something bigger. Literature and books in general are cultural products that have been known to have a significant influence on people, ultimately creating a sense of belonging and an ASEAN identity.
Explore:
Read the WorkSmart Asia blog post on Pravasi Bharatiya Divas
Learn more about Pravasi Bharatiya Divas events
Hashtag: #PBD2018SG
2018 is the 25th year of friendship between India and ASEAN and the High Commission is celebrating it with multiple events as the ASEAN India Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (Overseas Indians Day). The festivities will be held on 6-7 January at the Marina Bay Sands.
One of the marquee events at the festival is the PBD Writers Festival, which has been programmed and organised by Kitaab International (Kitaab), a Singapore-headquartered publishing and events company, on behalf of the High Commission of India in Singapore.
"The Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Writers Festival 2018 celebrates the literary ties between India and the ASEAN nations. It showcases the literary talent of ASEAN - writers and poets who have contributed to building a common literary heritage across the nations," said Zafar Anjum, Programme Director and founder and CEO of Kitaab, Singapore.
More than 30 writers from ASEAN are participating in this two-day festival. Professor Edwin Thumboo, the doyen of poetry in Singapore, will be delivering the keynote address. Literary luminaries Suchen Christine Lim, Isa Kamari, PN Balji, Chris Mooney-Singh, Marc Nair, Krishna Udayasankar, Clara Chow, Desmond Kon, Jayanthi Sankar and Elavazaghan Murugan are some of the prominent authors who will be participating in the festival.
India, with 22 officially recognised languages and a history of over 3,000 years in written literature, possesses “the single most complex and continuous multilingual tradition of literature in the world,” according to Dr Sheldon Pollock, a Sanskrit scholar and editor of the Murty Classical Library of India (MCLI).
Through millennia, India has been a source of inspiration for culture, art, architecture and literature in countries belonging to the present-day ASEAN. Thanks to contact with Indian civilisation, Southeast Asia has created many literary works inspired by Indian culture, says Kitaab.
Sanskrit scripts are the first form of writing known to have reached Southeast Asia, and have influenced the choice of the alphabets adopted for local languages in Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. A large number of ancient inscriptions which have been discovered in these region are in Sanskrit, and the Indian classic, the Ramayana, has inspired literature in this part of the world.
Kitaab points out that only culture can nurture and build a sense of being part of something bigger. Literature and books in general are cultural products that have been known to have a significant influence on people, ultimately creating a sense of belonging and an ASEAN identity.
Explore:
Read the WorkSmart Asia blog post on Pravasi Bharatiya Divas
Learn more about Pravasi Bharatiya Divas events
Hashtag: #PBD2018SG
