The Pune International Literary Festival is an annual literary festival held in Pune, Maharashtra. It was founded in 2013 and is one of the top eight literary festivals in India.[1] In 2017, attendance at the festival reached 15,000 people.[1] Since 2016, an international organisation Salzburg Global has been partnering with the festival.[2][3]
The Pune International Literary Festival is a three-day festival celebrating writers from different parts of Maharashtra and the rest of India. There are panel discussions and book launches and readers and attendees can meet authors.[4] In 2018,[5] there were 170 speakers [4] in five different halls on the campus.[6]
This festival usually takes place at the Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration, a training institute of the Maharashtra government.[7][8][9][10]
In 2018, writer and columnist Shobha De opened the festival.[11] The theme in 2018 was "Family: The Core of Society".[1] In 2017, the festival was opened by[12][13] Ustad Amjad Ali Khan.[citation needed] In 2019, the seventh edition of the festival focussed on climate change.[14] The social theme was "Save our Earth." Javed Akhtar opened the festival on 20 September 2019.[14]
Dr. Manjiri Prabhu, an author and film-maker is the director of the festival. It was founded by her and she has been the director since then.[15][16]