CANTO Poetry Festival 2023
Date: 15th-19th March 2023
15th & 16th March, the University of Chicago, Center in Delhi It gives us great pleasure to announce the inaugural edition of the CANTO – India’s first multicultural, multilingual, traveling poetry festival. The first component of the festival will be held at the University of Chicago Center in Delhi on the 15th and 16th of March, and the second component, at The Bengal Club in Kolkata on the 18th and 19th of March.
CANTO 2023 brings together some of the most renowned poets, translators, literary artists, and intellectuals of our times, including George Szirtes (Man International Booker Prize, T.S. Elliot Prize), Vijay Seshadri (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry), Daljit Nagra (Forward Prize), Wendy Doniger (PEN Oakland/ Josephine Miles Award, Tishani Doshi (Forward Prize, Eric Gregory Award), Amit Chaudhuri (Commonwealth Writer’s Prize & Infosys Prize in Humanities), Rosanna Warren (American Academy of Arts & Letters, Guggenheim Foundation), K. Satchidanandan (Dante Medal), Bibek Debroy (Padma Shri), Jeet Thayil and a host of Sahitya Akademi Award winners, including Joy Goswami, Anita Nair, and Arundhati Subramaniam.
The renowned University of Chicago is the principal partner-sponsor for CANTO 2023. A delegation of faculty poets from UChicago will be attending the festival in person, led by Professor Lina Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas, who also serves as Festival Advisor.
The University of Iowa and New York University is partnering with us, by promoting the festival events to their own international audience and network. HarperCollins Publishers India is the Publishing Partner of CANTO, the festival, and will be supporting the endeavor by bringing on board some of the best poets of our times. Sister Nivedita University, one of the rising young private universities of India with great potential, is a partner-sponsor for CANTO, and an integral part of this four-day inaugural edition.
The Bengal Club, one of the oldest social clubs of India with a rich and enduring historical legacy, is a Venue & Hospitality Partner for CANTO 2023, hosting the second leg of the festival in Kolkata.
Avik Chanda, bestselling author, columnist, and entrepreneur, is the Festival Director of CANTO.
CANTO 2023 is poised to be a watershed event in the literary landscape of South Asia, and beyond. We invite and welcome everyone to be a part of this exciting new journey.