Mysuru: The third edition of Mysuru Literature Festival (MLF), organised by the Mysuru Literary Forum and Charitable Trust and Mysuru Book Clubs (2015) will kick off tomorrow at Hotel Southern Star with Pramoda Devi Wadiyar inaugurating the festival at 2 pm at Jyothi Hall. It will be followed with a keynote address by Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik. There are 26 authors in English and 14 in Kannada participating in the two-day Festival being held on July 13 and 14.

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik is an Indian author, known for his work in mythology and interpretations of ancient Indian scriptures, stories, symbols and rituals. He writes a weekly column titled “Decoding Mythology” in Star of Mysore on Thursdays. 

Manu S. Pillai is an Indian author known for his debut non-fiction The Ivory Throne: Chronicles of the House of Travancore for which he won Yuva Sahitya Akademi Award-2017. He will be talking about his new book The Courtesan, the Mahatma & the Italian Brahmin – Tales from Indian History on July 13.

Sreenivasan Jain is a journalist with NDTV since 1995. He anchors a weekly show — Truth Vs Hype on NDTV. He is also the channel’s Managing Editor.

K.N. Shanth Kumar served as Vice-Chairman of The Press Trust of India Ltd., since September 24, 2012 and has been its Director since August 2006. He is the Director of TPML (The Printers Mysore Limited) which publishes the morning English newspaper Deccan Herald and Kannada newspaper Prajavani.

T.S. Nagabharana is a Kannada film director of Nagamandala-fame and a pioneer of parallel cinema known for his ability to straddle both mainstream and parallel cinema successfully.

B.Suresha, popularly known as a Director and writer in the Kannada film fraternity, is a theatre personality and also Film Director.   

K.M. Chaitanya is a Film Director, documentary maker and theatre person. His first feature film Aa Dinagalu in Kannada won several awards including the Filmfare Awards South for Best Director and Best Feature Film in 2007.

Shobhaa De is a popular Indian columnist and novelist. She is best known for her depiction of socialites and sex in her works of fiction, for which she has come to be known as the “Jackie Collins of India.”

Nirupama Menon Rao is a retired 1973 batch Indian Foreign Service Officer, who served as India’s Foreign Secretary from 2009 – 2011, as well as being India’s Ambassador to the United States, China and Sri Lanka (High Commissioner) during her career.

Raghu Karnad is an Indian journalist and writer, and a recipient of the Windham – Campbell Literature Prize for Non-Fiction for his book Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War. He is the son of late Playwright Girish Karnad.

Romulus Earl Whitaker is an Indian Herpetologist, wildlife conservationist and founder of the Madras Snake Park, The Andaman and Nicobar Environment Trust (ANET), and the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust.