Feted as one of the world’s most favourite Literature Festivals, The Fairway Galle Literary Festival will take place from 16 to 20 January 2019 at the Galle Fort.

A much looked forward to event by bibliophiles from Sri Lanka and around the world, the next edition of the festival will mark its tenth anniversary. Founded by Geoffrey Dobbs, the 2019 festival has a distinguished line up of authors, poets and actors. At a press conference of the FGLF 2019 held last week, Festival Director Sunela Samaranayake spoke briefly about the plans being made and introduced the new website for the festival while Festival Curator Jill Macdonald revealed part of the author line up with the remainder to be revealed during mid November.

The Fairway Galle Literary Festival held within the UNESCO heritage site of the Galle Fort attracts thousands of people each year, many of whom travel to Sri Lanka especially to attend this cultural attraction that greatly encourages the literary and arts spheres in addition to tourism. The event attracts highly educated and influential visitors each year.

In addition to the customary talks and discussion, the festival will hold two fringe festivals which will encourage the tenth edition of the FGLF to further explore its identity. The two fringe festivals which add value to the festival are the Art Trail which will include a pottery paining workshop and a poetry slam where emerging performance poets will demonstrate their skills in poetry and drama. 

To enable the FGLF to be more accessible to people of all strata, there will be three main outreach events which include an unticketed children’s programme, a free teacher training programme and the North-South programme where students from all universities across the country are brought to Galle with no expenses for them, plus money to purchase books. This is credited to Shyam Selvadurai a former curator of the festival who has provided yeoman service to bring the festival to its current status.

With only a few months to go before the festival begins, the organizers advices those who are interested in attending the festival to keep abreast of developments through the website http://www.galleliteraryfestival.com.

Receiving star billing at this year’s festival is Sir David Hare, one of the most celebrated and best known contemporary playwrights. 

Also attending is Kamila Shamsie, one of the most respected voices in literature today.  She was recently on the judging panel of the Best Ever Man Booker Prize Winner. In 2017 her own book Home Fire was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Bronze and she won the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2018. 

Also sharing the top billing is Sir Don McCullin who is one of the most admired photojournalists of his time. Sir Don has had a powerful impact on public knowledge of news to which access is difficult or complicated. Another much feted writer to attend the festival is Anthony Horowitz. One of the most prolific and successful writers in the UK, his Alex Rider books have sold over 16 million copies and he is the only modern writer to have been invited by Ian Fleming’s trustees to write two James Bond novels.

Also billed to attend is much beloved Sri Lankan author Romesh Gunasekera, Fatima Bhutto, William Dalrymple, Madeleine Thien,  Vahni Capildeo, Tishani Doshi, Carlo Pizzati, Thomas Bell, Kavitha Yagabuggana, Lucy Fleming,  Charles Cumming, Simon Williams, Tassie Seneviratne, Justine Picardie, Rachel Johnston, Ramya Chamalie Jirasinghe, Dinah Jefferies, Nandana Sen, Senthuran Varatharajah, Anne Enright, Herve le Tellier and Peter Kuruvita.

The next author reveal will take place in mid-November. The title sponsor of FGLF is Fairway Holdings while, Wijeya Newspapers is the print media partner. Find out more about the festival on http://www.galleliteraryfestival.com.