The Fairway Galle Literary Festival made a spectacular return in 2016 after a 3 year hiatus.

Since it’s beginnings in 2007, the “Galle Lit Fest” has grown into becoming one of the premiere international cultural events celebrating writing and literature from around the world, so much so, that in 2011, Harper’s Bazaar Magazine UK dubbed The Galle Literary Festival as the “No.1 Literary Festival in the world”.

The Announcement

At a press conference held at Barefoot Gallery in August 2015, festival director Amrita Peiris detailed the festival’s ambitious agenda for it’s comeback in 2016 with the support of the title sponsor Fairway Holdings (Pvt) Ltd.

The 2016 Fairway Galle Literary Festival (FGLF) would comprise of two mini-festivals in addition to it’s main festival which takes place in and around the historic Dutch Fort in Galle, Sri Lanka.

The first of the mini-festivals would take place in the hill country of Kandy and the other in Sri Lanka’s northern province of Jaffna.

The 2016 FGLF, was also the venue for the presentation of the inaugural Fairway National Literary Award which recognized the best Sri Lankan novel in the languages of Sinhala, Tamil and English; and the prestigious DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Co-founder of the DSC Prize, Surina Narula (MBE) was in attendance to make the announcement.

The official reveal of festival participants was announced in November 2015, at a press conference which took place at the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo with founder Geoffrey Dobbs in attendance.

International best selling authors Sebastian Faulks, Meera Syal, Hugh Thomson, Tom Holland and Amitav Ghosh were introduced along with the likes of celebrated stage and screen actress Fiona Shaw, Michelin star chefs Jacques and Laurent Pourcel and the 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry Gregory Pardlo to name but a few of the festival’s distinguished participants.

The announcement was accompanied by a live streaming Instagram event under the hashtag #GLF2016. (Follow the Galle Literary Festival on Instagram: @gallelitfest)

Kandy

The first event on the festival program took place from January 8th – 10th 2016, in Kandy. The event’s participants included celebrated architect, Channa Daswatte, Sebastian Faulks, Ovidia Yu, poet Omar Musa and explorer Hugh Thomson who along with festival founder Geoffrey Dobbs and festival curator Shyam Selvadurai, journeyed up to the beautiful hill country by train.

Shyam Selvadurai, Geoffrey Dobbs, Hugh Thomson and Omar Musa at the FGLF2016 on route to Kandy

Sebastian Faulks at the Colombo station waiting for his train to Kandy

Ovidia Yu with Shyam Selvadurai, ready to board their train to Kandy

Through the winding hills, onward and upward to the hill city of Kandy.

Galle

With preparations in place, the main festival came to life on January 13, 2016 in the heart of the historic Galle Fort with incredible cultural extravaganza performed by artists and dancers from the Sri Lanka Army.

The FGLF 2016 took place over a 4 day period bringing together authors, performers, and artists who met for conversations that covered their work and interests, with a well-read and engaged public from all over the world. The small size of the fort allowed audience-to-author interaction both on and offstage.

Anuradha Roy in conversation on Sleeping on Jupiter.

Amitav Ghosh

Tea & Poetry with Tishani Doshi.

Fiona Shaw on Shakespeare and Friends, Ibsen and Enemies.

Chefs Jacques and Laurent Pourcel on Food of the Mediterranean.

Tea & Poetry with Omar Musa.

Jeet Thayil on Narcopolis.

Fiona Shaw chats with a literary blogger at the Galle Literary Festival 2016

Hugh Thomson

Sebastian Faulks on ‘Devil May Care’ and James Bond.

The Festival also featured workshops and creative writing avenues, which served to stimulate and motivate literary activity in attendees.

Shehan Karunatilaka workshop on How to Tell a Sri Lankan Story.

Samanth Subaramaniam workshop on Reading to Write for Narrative Non-Fiction.

Padma Viswanathan workshop on People, Places, Things: Creating Characters from Real-World Observations.

Tishani Doshi workshop on How to Write a Love Poem.

A celebrated signature feature of the Fairway Galle Literary Festival is the hosting of gourmet lunches and dinners in private villas and boutique hotels in and around the Galle Fort. At these events an author dines and converses with a small group of his or her avid readers. The 2016 FGLF hosted 28 of such events.

Literary Lunch at the Galle Fort Hotel with Sebastian Faulks

Literary Lunch at Amangalla with Nayomi Munaweera and Anuradha Roy.

Literary Lunch attendees at the Galle Fort Hotel

Literary dinner at Owl & The Pussycat with Saba Douglas-Hamilton Kenyan, wildlife conservationist and television presenter.

The Fairway Galle Literary Festival 2016 hosted 83 participants both local and from around the world. Authors, historians, explorers, environmentalists, actors and poets took part in 102 sessions across the 10 days of the festival.

The winners of the inaugural Fairway National Literary Award 2015 were announced on Friday January 15, 2016. Sepali Mayadunne’s ‘Maha Sami’ was declared the winner in the Sinhala category with Rizwina Morseth De Alwis (It’s Not In Our Stars) and Ayathurai Santhan (Rails Run Parallel) emerging as joint winners in the English category. The “Fairway Literary Encouragement Award” was presented to 15 year old Sajani Jayathma Senanayake.

Sepali Mayadunne – Winner 2015 Fairway National Literary Award – Sinhala

Maha Sami a novel by Sepali Mayadunne. Winner 2015 FNLA Sinhala.

Ayathurai Santhan – Shortlist and Joint Winner 2015 Fairway National Literary Award English

Rails Run Parallel a novel by Ayathurai Santhan – Winner of 2015 FNLA English

It’s Not in the Stars a novel by Rizvina Morseth de Alwis – Winner 2015 FNLA English

Fairway Literary Encouragement Award winner 15yr old Sajani Jayathma Senanayake for her novel The Pearl of Truth.

On Saturday January 16, 2016 The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2016 was awarded to FGLF 2016 participating author Anuradha Roy for her novel Sleeping on Jupiter, which deals with the subject of violence against women.  The award was presented by Sri Lanka Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

A brief overview of what was FGLF 2016 …