On the 23rd & 24th November, 2024 the 4th International Literary Meet was organised at the Shivananda Hall of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Golpark, Kolkata.
The meet was inaugurated by poet & writer Smt. Mamang Dai, a Sahitya Akademi and Padmashri recipient from Arunachal Pradesh. It was attended by eminent poets and writers like Nasser Alshaikhahmed from Saudi Arabia, Jean Frederic Chevallier from France, Papia Ghoshal Baul from Czech Republic, poets Subodh Sarkar & Sudhir Dutta, linguist Pabitra Sarkar and Swami Suparnananda of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Golpark Kolkata. Unfortunately Dilafruz Oblokulova, the poet from Uzbekistan could not come as she missed the flight.
But her recorded audio message and poetry reading was played before the audience. This year the International Literary Meet Lifetime Achievement Awrd went to the veteraln poet and writer Kalikrishna Guha. Shyamal Bhattacharya got the Dr. Bishnupada Sndilya Memorial Award for his work in translating literature from different Indian languages.
Eminent literateurs who were connected with the Meet in the past and have since palled away like Jayanta Mahapatra, an English language poet from Orissa, Nirendranath Chakrabarti, Sankha Ghosh, Alokeranjan Dasgupta, Nabanita Debsen, Pabitra Mukhopadhyay, Pranab Mukhopadhyay, Nasser Hossain and Chittaranjan Pal. Poets from different parts of Wst Bengal read out Bengali poems. Nasser Alshaikhahmed from Saudi Arabia read poetry in Arabian, Jean Frederic Chevallier read his French poems along with Bengali translations; Papia Ghoshal Baul read her poetry in Czech. Besides, poems in Punjabi, Odia, Hindi and English were read out. Sadhan Chattopadhyay, Satadru Majumdar, Purba Kumar, Sujata Kar & Mousumi Mukhopadhyay read their flash fictions and Barendu Mandal spoke on flash fiction.
Discussions were held on transcending language barrier in poetry to reach readers all over the world, where Mamang Dai, Subodh Sarkar, Nasser Alshaikhahmed and Jean Frederic Chevallier participated. In another topic, aritificial intelligence vs human inelligence in translation, discussions were held by Nilanjan Sandilya, Jaya Choudhury, Trishna Basak and Nasser Alshaikhahmed. Mozid Mahmud could not make it to the meet, but sent his contentions in an audio tape, which was played before the audience. Nilanjan Sandilya, the Predident & Adhir Krishna Mandal, editor of the meet informed that more than two hundred poets and writers from different districts of West Bengal, different states of India and different countries participated in the meet. On this occasion was published a bilingual magazine (in Bengali and English) containg writings of the special guests, a section on the departed litteateurs and some essays of importance.
