Kalinga Literary Festival gears up for its 12th edition in Odisha

The temple city of Bhubaneswar is gearing up to embrace voices that enlighten and entertain as the 12th edition of the Kalinga Literary Festival (KLF) is set to take place from January 8 to January 11, 2026, at Mayfair Lagoon with an impressive line-up of prominent writers and thinkers.

Hosted and curated by the Odisha Diary Foundation and jointly organised by Kalinga Literary Festival Private Limited, the KLF 2026 will take place across five venues, featuring more than 400 eminent speakers and thought leaders from India and abroad.

The festival will traverse the entire spectrum of human inquiry—fiction and poetry, history and heritage, science and sustainability, philosophy and policy, art and activism. Furthermore, it will spotlight themes ranging from AI and geopolitics to mental health, climate action, gender, identity, and translation, said the KLF in a statement.

This edition also includes sessions on literature, philosophy, art, music, cinema, and the sciences.

The festival will feature notable Booker Prize winners such as Banu Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi, and Daisy Rockwell, as well as other prominent writers such as Perumal Murugan and Anand Neelkanthan, among others.

The KLF captures the diversity and dynamism by featuring Booker and Sahitya Akademi awardees, as well as cultural historians, artists, diplomats, scientists, and storytellers.

“Kalinga Literary Festival 2026 will be a landmark edition rooted in India’s literary soul yet open to the winds of global thought. Our sessions will traverse the rich tapestry of human experience from mythology to machine learning, from village idioms to world literature. At a time when the written word is competing with the digital din, KLF stands as a reminder that storytelling remains humanity’s most enduring technology,” said Ashok Kumar Bal, Festival Patron, and the CEO.

Alongside its literary celebrations, KLF 2026 will also host the 10th edition of the Kalinga Art Festival, bringing together painters, sculptors, and visual storytellers in a spectacular showcase of creativity.

Since 2012, KLF has hosted over 5,000 speakers and performers, creating a melting pot of ideologies and creativity.

In addition to its flagship festival, KLF has also organized an international literary festival in Kathmandu since 2022, which has attracted a wide array of speakers from diverse domains. Moving forward, KLF plans to host festivals in Colombo and Bali, seeking to rekindle the ancient ties Kalinga shared with Southeast Asian nations.