Pranab Mukherjee will inaugurate Kolkata Literature Festival

Former President Pranab Mukherjee will inaugurate the three-day Kolkata Literature Festival beginning on February 7 at the ongoing International Kolkata Book Fair ground.

Mukherjee will inaugurate the 2019 Kolkata Literature Festival, which will be having 66 guests from 10 countries including India, general secretary of the Publishers and Booksellers Guild, organisers of the book fair, Tridib Chatterjee told a press meet here Tuesday.

"He (Mukherjee) is the pride of Bengal ... and we are proud he will be inaugurating the Kolkata Literature Festival few days after being conferred with the Bharat Ratna," he said.

The inauguration ceremony will also be attended by Jnanpith recipient Bengali poet Sankha Ghosh and eminent Bengali writer Samaresh Majumder as the literary meet will have special thrust on Bengali literature, Chatterjee said.

Wishing all the best to the literary meet, eminent Scottish publicist Jenny Brown said at the press meet "Our ties with this city and its book loving people run deep. We plan to bring new voices in literature from Bengal to Scotland, ... mooting literary exchanges between the two countries."