Mumbai LitFest 2025: Here’s your complete guide to the three-day event this weekend

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Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest 2025 is returning to the city with its 16th edition from November 7 to 9 at NCPA in Nariman Point. This year's festival will bring together over a hundred authors from 15 countries.

From queer literature to silent reading sessions, the three-day celebration promises a rich and diverse range of events. The festival will open with the ‘For the Love of the Word' inauguration ceremony, followed by the session ‘Truth. Trust. Testimony.'

Awards
The literary festival includes highlights such as the Lifetime Achievement, Poet Laureate, and Literary Awards, along with the Book in Focus, book launches, and daily dramatic performances, will continue to feature this year.

Literary icon Vinod Kumar Shukla will be honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award, while eminent Gujarati poet and playwright Sitanshu Yashaschandra will be conferred the title of Poet Laureate.

Literature for children
The Little Festival, a special segment for children aged 8 to 11, will run simultaneously on November 7 and 8, featuring interactive conversations, book swaps, workshops, and performances.

Marking its centenary, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby will be the Book in Focus for 2025.

Speakers list
A few of the many notable speakers for this year's festival are Shashi Tharoor, Former Cheif Justice of India Dhananjaya Chandrachud, actor Jim Sarbh, journalist Faye D'Souza.

Some of the sessions to look forward to include:

Queer Directions
A writing workshop by Dhamini Ratnam, Dhrubo Jyoti, and Parmesh Shahani, exploring the art of queer memoir writing with participants.

When a Woman Writes
A session featuring Yang Shuang-zi, reflecting on how a young girl's coming-of-age experiences shape her reading, writing, and research. Through her works, she questions dominant ideas of history and relationships, tracing her creative evolution from Yang Jo-tzu to her nom de plume, Yang Shuang-zi.

Booked!
A literary conversation where Booker Prize winner and Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka speaks with poet-novelist Jerry Pinto about the novel as a literary form.