Come September and AP Tourism is all set to kick-start the State's first literature festival in Madanapalle, where Rabindranath Tagore translated " Jana Gana Mana" from Bengali to English.
It is going to be destination Madanapalle for lit buffs and bookworms this year. The small town in Chittoor district will host the State's very first lit fest - the Andhra Pradesh Literature Festival - in September. It was in the hills of Madanapalle that Rabindranath Tagore translated the National Anthem into English along with Margaret Cousins (wife of the Irish poet James Cousins) and set the notation which is followed till this day as "The Morning Song of India".
And it was only fitting for AP Tourism to kick-start the State's first lit fest in this town where this song in Tagore's handwriting is displayed in Besant Theosophical College's library. Incidentally, this year marks the Nobel laureate's 150th birth anniversary. The town is also the birth place of the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, who founded the Rishi Valley School. Talking about the lit fest, Principal Secretary (Tourism) Chandana Khan, says, "We picked Madanapalle because of the strong literary connection the city has. The fest will feature a lot of inter-disciplinary art - discussions, book readings etc.
We will ensure that one-fourth of the literary personalities participating in the fest hail from the State and the rest come from other parts of the country. The festival will be held in September this year and there will one panel dedicated solely to children's literature so that kids are encouraged to read." The AP Lit Fest will be an annual literary extravaganza that will be held in various parts of the state every year. "This year it will be Madanapalle. Next year, we will pick another venue," informs the IAS officer. Going by the response the Hyderabad Literary Festival 2012 got in January, the State's first lit fest promises to be a treat for celebrated writers, literary enthusiasts and die-hard bookworms.
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