Stories from Hyderabad

Friday, March 20, 2020

The 2020 Hyderabad Literary Festival (HLF) is a 3-day literary and creative event held in the heart of Telangana, India that is known for its celebration of creativity in all its forms and Avondale Arts lecturer Lynnette Lounsbury was invited to share stories and new writing ideas from Australia. Interview by Ashley Cotter.

What can you tell us about the festival?

It was also the tenth year of the festival so we were celebrating that as well as local writers from the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad and the emerging culture of “Cyberabad”, which refers to the entire region and its focused growth. There were 13 writers from Australia and we were a diverse bunch including Indigenous writers and poets, Indian-Australians, fiction writers, sportswriters, historians and romance writers. The HLF itself featured 200 writers and was an entirely free event compromised of stage talks, panels, workshops, exhibitions and performances. The visitors included school kids, university students, local writers and people who wandered in from the street. It was always full and lively. The festival was held in a high school which was in a building that used to be a palace. The grounds were decorated with art by local artists and there was a food-court filled with local food vendors as well as a market and an outdoor performance space for musicians, comedians and slam poets. It was an inspiring festival as far as its commitment to inclusivity and diversity across race, age and gender.

The Hyderabad Literary Festival is an annual writing festival held in the Southern Indian city of Hyderabad, Telangana. Every year the festival has a guest nation and an Indian language in focus. This year the guest nation was Australia and the Indian language focus was Malayalam.

What drew you to attending the Hyderabad Literary Festival?

I was invited to attend as a presenting writer from Australia. My visit was sponsored partly by Avondale, partly by the Australian Consulate in Chennai and partly by the HLF itself. I was invited to talk about new and experimental writing and to discuss my novel We Ate the Road like Vultures.

I was on a panel with Filipa Martin, a writer from Portugal and Dr Giri Rao, a science-fiction scholar from Azim Premji University. For my part I discussed my research and creative practise in speculative history and alternate timelines – which is essentially “messing with history” in creative writing. Obviously, I couldn’t say no to an invitation like this. I had never been to India but I knew India had an incredible literary culture so I was excited to go and immerse myself in a small part of that.

Did you get up to any adventures while in India?

There wasn’t a lot of spare time around the festival as the writers were invited to dinners at the Australian Consulate and the German Consulate at the end of the day, but in the few hours I had spare, I snuck away and visited the incredible Golconda Fort ruins and the floating Buddha, two of Hyderabad’s historical sites.

Any writers to look out for that you met in Hyderabad?

I met some incredible writers and poets at the festival and I would encourage anyone who loves poetry to add the work of Jerry Pinto, Tenzin Tsundue and Kala Ramesh to their reading lists. There was a strong culture of political engagement at the festival and there were some vibrant talks from political journalists, historians and environmentalists about visions for India’s future. It was invigorating to be a part of it.