Former Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva takes part in the fourth annual literary festival in Lahore

In Lahore, Pakistan hosted the fourth annual Literary Festival, which was attended by hundreds of thousands of people both from Pakistan, India, South Asia and all over the world (the official website of the festival - lahorelitfest.com). Lahore, a former 12th century capital of the Mughal Sultanate Empire during Akbar, is today the cultural center of Pakistan, where new ideas are born, and poetry and prose, music, cinema, painting, architecture flourish.

 

The festival brought together the creative intelligentsia of the Indian subcontinent, and speaking on the most pressing issues of our time were writers, historians, journalists, and politicians. Several sections were devoted to Central Asia, including an hour-long interview-conversation with former President of the Kyrgyz Republic R. I. Otunbaeva in the big auditorium. She also spoke at the large debate about contemporary geopolitics in Asia.

 

A separate section was held on the Central Asian literature and oral poetry of the Uzbek writer Hamid Ismailov. Such festivals provide an abundance of information about our neighbors, building bridges across the distinct issues between nations. The UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and well-known actress across the whole subcontinent, Sharmila Tagor—granddaughter of the great Rabindrat Tagor—spoke for over an hour to an audience of several thousand people, creating a very warm and wonderful relationship with the attending public.