Taj Literature Festival in Agra from Dec 12

The second edition of the Taj Literature Festival will be held in Agra Dec 12-14. The three-day extravaganza aims to reach out to the literati of Agra and Kanpur, the organisers said.

The festival will host talk sessions by celebrated personalities on a wide spectrum of subjects ranging from Rabindranath Tagore to cricket, to the centenary of Indian cinema, and also 66 years of India's independence.

"The festival hopes to bring alive the thoughts behind the creative art and literature works. There was a time when Agra used to be a stronghold of culture; names like Ghalib, Tansen, Surdas and Nazeer are a part of the lore of Agra. This festival is an attempt to rejuvenate the embers of that aesthetic spirit," Harvijay Singh Bahia, festival producer, said.

Apart from literary sessions, the festival will also witness director Feroz Abbas Khan's play 'Tumhari Amrita' starring Farooq Shaikh and Shabana Azmi and also a musical performance by singer Vidya Shah, and a dramatic reading session by award winning British historian William Dalrymple.