The Lahore Literary Festival’s 13th edition takes place Feb. 21-23 at the Alhamra Arts Center.
This three day, free, and nonprofit public event is “a celebration of the creative spirit and features discussions on the written and spoken word, film, art, architecture, heritage and its preservation,” said Aneela Shah, an organizer of the festival, which has in the past hosted three Nobel laureates and Booker and Pulitzer winners across its editions in Lahore, New York, and London.
The festival has unveiled some of this year’s speakers for the annual edition in Lahore on its website. These include:
Jessica Bruder, award-winning author of Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century (2017) and Snowden’s Box: Trust in the Age of Surveillance (2020); and Peter Frankopan, historian and author of The Silk Roads: The Extraordinary History that Created Your World (2018) and The Earth Transformed: An Untold Story (2023).
Other announced speakers are Haji Noor Deen Mi Guangjiang, a master of Islamic calligraphy who specializes in the Sini style, which is rooted in the Chinese Muslim tradition; and Sofka Zinovieff, British journalist and author of Putney (2018).
“It is always an honor to be able to draw some of the most acclaimed and relevant voices in the world to inform and interact with Lahore audiences,” said Shah. “Speakers and, importantly, the receptive and enthusiastic crowds who attend have made LLF the premier literary festival in South Asia. Its network of global partnerships extends its influence beyond Pakistan and allows us to champion Pakistan’s rich intellectual and cultural heritage abroad.”
The full three-day schedule will be released closer to the event, said Shah.