Nine-day Gomti book fest to begin in Lucknow on Nov 9

A nine-day Gomti Book Festival will run in the state capital from November 17 on the banks of the river, jointly organised by the National Book Trust (NBT) and the Union ministry of education.
Beginning on Saturday (Nov 9), the festival will be divided into various sections – Children’s Corner, Book Street, Lekhakganj, Youth Corner and Digital Reading Corner.
There will be 150 stalls of publishers from across India in Book Street, Amit Singh, manager sales and marketing, NBT said.
“As part of this year’s theme we are celebrating different arts of storytelling through film festivals, puppetry, poetry, dastangoi, dance drama and creative writing. A Digital Reading Corner will also be placed as part of the programme,” said Singh.
Creative workshops for children and youth and sessions by renowned authors, educationists and artistes will be part of the festival this year. Among the prominent people who will be part of the festival are – filmmaker and author Muzaffar Ali, para-olympian Preeti Pal and Sunira, dastango Himanshu Bajpai, singer Phunchok Ladakhi, authors Anand Neelkanthan and Ambalika Bhat, singer Indira Naik and poet Chinmayi Tripathi.
“The festival is an initiative that promotes reading among people from all age groups. This year we are bringing different forms of creative expression as part of the initiative,” said Singh.
Over the nine days the festival will remain open from 11 am to 8 pm. Cultural programmes will be organised from 6 pm onwards, daily.