The fourth edition of Ananke’s Women in Literature Festival on Tuesday celebrated and showcased how collective efforts enable positive narratives and mobilize change through dialogue and engagement.
Happening in the month of World Book Day, the three-day event strives to create a space, a collective, where diverse sets of voices, especially from the Global South, can come together to share their thoughts, visions, and lived experiences with agency. The event is being livestreamed on Ananke’s YouTube and Facebook pages.
AnankeWLF is a shared space powered by award-winning authors, writers, creatives, and independent publishing houses, as well as other media organizations including (in alphabetical order) Ala Books and Authors, BookBot, eShe, Kitaab, Keemiya Creatives, Nadja Media, Neem Tree Press, Readomania, Reverie Publishers, Seagull Books, Trace Press, Yoda Press, Zubaan Books, and Zuka Books.
Ananke's Women in Literature Festival has consistently been at the forefront of sparking impactful conversations at the intersection of gender equality and intersectional feminism through the prism of literature and the creative arts. The digital festival aims to bridge divides and celebrate the diverse, creative journeys of women across the globe.
Setting an example as to how collective efforts can initiate positive impact, AnankeWLF’s alliances have forged new regional, global, professional, and literary relationships amongst authors, publishers, media houses, connoisseurs and lovers of the written word, creative arts, dialogue, justice, equity, and equality.
This year is no different when it comes to Ananke’s event partners upping their games. Award-winning feminist publishing house Zubaan Books is curating insightful sessions, including one on Dalit writing, aligned with April being Dalit History Month.
Zubaan is a leading independent publishing house based in New Delhi, India, with a strong academic and general list. It was set up in 2003 as an imprint of India’s first feminist publishing house, Kali for Women, and continues to publish books on, for, by, and about women in South Asia. Urvashi Butalia, founder of Zubaan, is also on AnankeWLF’s advisory board.
Engaging sessions with another long-time event partner, Seagull Books, include a fireside chat with the publishing house’s founder, Naveen Kishore, as well as author Tathagatha Bhattachariya.
“It’s a pleasure to be part of Ananke’s festival. There’s much we love about it, but perhaps the most exciting thing is the truly collaborative ways in which Ananke brings together diverse voices: it’s a place where women (and some men) speak with freedom, emotion, love, rage, and enthusiasm, and year after year, the nuance and depth of women’s voices enriches us and teaches us new ways of listening,” opined Founder Zubaan Books, Urvashi Butalia.
Seagull Books (established in 1982) has been crafting books with an eye to both exceptional content and radical design. What began the highly risky business of publishing books—books on alternative cinema, philosophy, and culture—continues to be a passionately felt need of the hour: manuscripts that need to see the light of day, instinctive and theatrical, visual arts, to reach a readership, to stimulate minds, to change outlooks.
Yoda Press, an award-winning publishing house, will be celebrating its 20th anniversary at the festival. The session will be helmed by its founder, Arpita Das, who will also be officially opening the festival with a keynote address.
Yet another longtime partner, Readomania, will be bringing highly engaging discussions focusing on the future, heritage, short story writing in South Asia, and more.
Partners Neem Tree Press and eShe sessions include enlightening conversations around South Asian writing, romance, and the female gaze, respectively. A special session with eShe Founder Aekta Kapoor will center on her immense body of work.
Launched in July 2017, eShe is a platform for women leaders from all fields with a vision for peacebuilding. In 2021, eShe hosted an Indo-Pak Peace Summit led by women, bringing together eminent women from around the world to discuss solutions for peace in South Asia.
The organization also launched a nonprofit platform, South Asia Union, and hosted the South Asia Union Summit, led by women, with 50 speakers from 13 countries.
"It's an honor to be part of Ananke's Women in Literature Festival once again as it grows from strength to strength, creating new avenues for women writers, readers, critics, and editors to come together across South Asia, the Middle East, and beyond," said founder Aekta Kapoor.
Talking about Ananke's latest alliance with Sapan,co-founder of the South Asia Peace Action Network (Sapan), Beena Sarwar said, "I'm so excited and honored to be part of the Ananke Women's Literature Festival. Never has there been greater need for such a platform that brings together women's wisdom and voices and a space for healing. Solidarity and strength! Onward!"