Karachi - The Karachi Literature Festival Saturday continued on the second day, attracting literature lovers to the event.
According to Dawn, Imagining Pakistan by Dr Rasul Baksh Rias won the KLF Pepsi prize for nonfiction, while Omar Shahid Hamid won the KLF Getz Pharma fiction award for The Party Worker and Altaf Fatima won the KLF-Infaq Foundation Urdu literature prize.
The German Preace Przie winners are being announced and the third prize winner is Ahtar Baloch for prison narratives.
Zohab Khan, Zoha Jabbar, Batool Hassan, Shameneh Majid, Mariam Paracha and Hamza talk about what poetry means to them at a special sitting titled ‘Slam Bam Verse’.
In the session on gender issues, the speakers stressed the need for concerted efforts against taboos. "I identify myself as a transgender woman," says Kami.
"A lot of the issues brought up by The Me-Too movement expose not just sexual exploitation but economic exploitation," says Haris Gazdar, adding, ""Surveys reveal that women themselves don't regard their own labour as work."
"We need to create a sense of outrage against inequality. As a culture we should be upset when certain unequal norms are tolerated,"
Aurelie Salvaire says, "I find there are more feminists in Pakistan's lower middle class than in the upper classes." She adds, “Imagine what would happen is all the women in Pakistan stopped working for one day, the country would be paralyzed. We have so much power but we don’t know it because patriarchy has divided us.”
Zia Mohyeddin talked about why Shakespeare is Shakespeare and a few readings added colour to the festival. The BNN session brought laughter to audience though it started behind the schedule. The day ended with a concert. Earlier, poetry and various stalls provided feast to literary persons.
