Kolkata is no stranger to literary festivals. From the grand-scale annual International Kolkata Book Fair (Boi Mela) to Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival and Oxford Bookstore’s Bangla Sahitya Utsob, the city’s bibliophiles are always excited to embrace a new literary event.
Adding to the city’s calendar this year will be the debut edition of a literary meet celebrating a niche genre — crime writing.
From Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay and Priyanath Mukhopadhyay, to Suchitra Bhattacharya, Adrish Bardhan, and Anish Deb — Bengal’s writers have spun many thrilling tales in this genre. The adventures of Prodosh Chandra Mitter aka Feluda, Byomkesh Bakshi, Kiriti, Prasanna Kumar Basu, Dipak Chatterjee, Jayanta and Manik, and Mitin Mashi, have kept readers engrossed over the years.
On March 29, the debut Kolkata Crime Writers’ Festival, organised by Storyteller Bookstore, will be celebrating all this and more.
Meet the organisers
The idea of the festival was conceived by Storyteller Bookstore owner Mayura Misra and author Amrita Mukherjee, when they realised that there isn’t anything happening in the city specifically dedicated to this genre.
Mayura, who hosts book fairs in various city schools, had observed how young minds were interested in crime and thriller stories, fiction and non-fiction. Since Indian literature, including Bengali literature, has a rich variety when it comes to books for children and young adults in the crime fiction genre, the entrepreneur feels that this festival will appeal to readers and budding authors of the genre. “The aim is to get them (the children and young adults) together and show them how to write stories in this literary genre,” said Mayura.
The festival has been curated by Storyteller Bookstore founder Mayura Misra, and (right) author Amrita Mukherjee Courtesy Mayura Misra
What to expect
As soon as the idea was locked, Mayura and Amrita started reaching out to authors from Kolkata, who got on board almost instantly. The programme aims to throw light on the nuances of writing crime stories — a genre that has branched out to films, audiobooks, podcasts and OTT.
Leading up to the festival, they also organised an online short story competition in the crime-thriller genre for young authors. Winners will be announced during the festival, and winning entries will be published on readomania.com. They will also be felicitated by authors of the genre at the Kolkata Crime Writers’ Festival.
The festival will be attended by contemporary crime authors like Deepta Roy Chakraverti, Sourabh Mukherjee, Moitrayee Bhaduri and Ushasi Sen Basu as well as filmmakers like Arindam Sil.
Storyteller Bookstores will also host a crime-writing workshop for children above 13 years. A few city schools including Sri Shikshayatan and DPS Barasat have expressed interest in the workshops, to be conducted by Arindam Basu and Deepta Roy Chakraverti.
“Since most of the panelists also know each other, it is going to be a cosy gathering. There is a sense of ‘this is my festival’ among the authors, which makes the event more special,” shared Deepta.
What: Kolkata Crime Writers’ Festival
When: March 29, 2.30pm-7pm
Where: Storyteller Bookstore, Picnic Gardens, Kolkata
Contact: 9331051191