Under the HayLights

When Hay Festival Dhaka inaugurated their pilot programme three years ago, it was to showcase Bangladeshi literature to the world. Having done that in 2011, the next edition gave English and Bangla writers as well as our peripheral literary forms an international platform to exchange their stories. As a natural transition, Hay Festival Dhaka 2013 then had thinkers, writers and other artists meeting on a common platform where words, images and expressions from an array of media intermingled freely.

Building on this foundation, Hay Festival Dhaka 2014 now stands bigger, broader, bolder to challenge literary boundaries – internal and external.

In the year that saw much brouhaha over billboards in dual languages, this Festival is particularly relevant to those who believe that language is best appreciated in all forms of expression. Thus the three days will be a celebration of our mother tongue with recitations by the esteemed Joy Goswami; a panel on four decades of Shakespeare in Bangla; popular RJ Russell's 'Bhooter Golpo'; and rap by Bigg Spade and Black Zang. There will also be poetry recitations by our favourite Bangladeshi poets, and a spotlight on regional languages on the brink of extinction. Special mention must be made of the bilingual session featuring K Anis Ahmed, Khademul Islam and Syed Manzoorul Islam that will touch on bridging the gap between Bangla and English.

Underscoring the need to address our painful past as a trajectory of where we stand today, there will be a multi-angled focus on our Independence War. Different panels engage with novels and anthologies on 1971, such as Javed Jahangir's Ghost Alley, Salil Tripathi's The Colonel Who Would Not Repent, and Fault Lines – an edited anthology by Niaz Zaman and Asif Farukkhi. At the visual end of the spectrum we have photo books of Bangladesh in all her glory, such as Drik's 25th Anniversary Issue, Munem Wasif's Belonging, and Ihtisham Kabir's Sylhet.

The Festival delves into a rich collection of international fiction, non-fiction and poetry just as it has done in the past years. The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor, Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang, In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman, Shaping the World edited by Manju Kapur, The Book of Gold Leaves by Mirza Waheed, Capital by Rana Das Gupta, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan by William Dalrymple, Beloved Strangers by Maria Chaudhuri, The Question of Red by Laksmi Pamuntjak are just some of the books that will be featured on panels this year. There will be poetry performances and much prose on poets such as Mimi Khalveti, Razia Khan, Sabrina Mahfouz and Kosal Khiev.

On the external front, Hay Festival Dhaka 2014 ambitiously goes beyond the traditional definitions of literature to expand our knowledge in world philosophy, science, mathematics, and architecture. Harvard University Professor Michael Puett will deliberate on a world philosophy that is inclusive of theories from classical China. Lucy Hawking, daughter of renowned cosmologist Stephen Hawking, will discuss her work on making science popular and later have an interactive session with children. Oxford Professor Marcus du Sautoy will talk about the magic of mathematics and explore its interconnections with literature. French curator Pompidou Aurelien Lemonier will retrace the lines that separate Art and Architecture.

Aside from providing food for the mind, Hay Festival Dhaka 2014 will nourish the soul. Gofur Hali and others will hail the day with spiritual songs. The venerable Patrick Laude will uncover the Self as a sacred text. In a separate panel, he will join Sufi scholar Shankar Nair and Professor emeritus in Theology David Burrell to examine expressions of devotional yearning.

Clearly then, the Hay Festival Dhaka 2014 programme has gone beyond dusty-covered tomes of 'thees, thous and wherefores.' It provides an unparalleled opportunity to question ourselves as an entity, as part of the whole. It has gone beyond an elite gathering of litterateurs to make it pertinent across different disciplines. The Festival invites us to stand on the threshold of literature, shade our eyes against the traditional glare of knowledge and see for ourselves what we will.