The Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) is set to return for its 17th edition from February 6 to 8 at a local hotel, continuing its tradition of remaining free and open to the public.
Organised by Oxford University Press Pakistan, this year’s festival is centred on the theme Literature in a Fragile World, reflecting on how literature, poetry, and critical inquiry respond to moments of social, political, and cultural instability.
“In an increasingly fractured world, literature remains one of the last spaces where dogmas can be questioned, and humanity can speak to itself without fear,” said OUP Pakistan Managing Director Arshad Saeed Husain, outlining the festival’s broader intellectual vision.
The three-day event will feature more than 200 delegates from eight countries and include over 90 sessions. The programme also comprises 28 book launches across three languages, alongside two documentary screenings and two feature films.
Keynote addresses will be delivered by Senator Sherry Rehman, Mohammed Hanif, Nasir Abbas Nayyar, and Khurshid Rizvi. They will be joined by a lineup of writers, poets, scholars, critics, and cultural thinkers from Pakistan and abroad. Among the notable participants this year are filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Professor Richard Susskind CBE KC (Hon), Scottish historian and filmmaker Sam Dalrymple and novelist Laline Paull.
Several new initiatives have been introduced for this edition, including The Great KLF Debate, a Sindhi Mushairo, and an interschool debate, underscoring the festival’s focus on youth participation, linguistic inclusivity, and civic engagement. Literary discussions will be interwoven with dramatic performances, classical music, theatre, rap, and qawwali.
The programme also features a special session marking the 150th birth anniversary of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, which includes a screening of Jinnah, introduced by filmmaker Jamil Dehlavi, as well as a panel discussion on the life, thought, and enduring relevance of Allama Iqbal. Additionally, a session commemorating the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth is part of this year’s lineup.
A dedicated Youth Pavilion will host storytelling sessions, theatre activities, and interactive workshops for younger audiences.
The festival will conclude with the announcement of the 2026 KLFGetz Pharma Book Prize winners, honouring outstanding contributions in English fiction, Urdu prose, and poetry.
The First Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) was organised by Oxford University Press (Pakistan) in collaboration with British Council in March 2010. Inspired by the success of the first two festivals (2010 and 2011), the Children’s Literature Festival (CLF) was launched at the end of 2011. Thus the momentum that began in Pakistan with KLF leading, also saw the Islamabad Literature Festival (ILF) being launched in 2013, further followed by the Teachers’ Literature Festival in 2014, and many others following their example. This momentum reflects the depth of Pakistan’s literary and cultural roots, and the desire and energy to celebrate the pursuit of knowledge, understanding, and creativity. In celebration of Pakistan’s 70th birthday, and for the first time, KLF was held outside Pakistan, in London, in May 2017 at the Southbank Centre as part of the Alchemy Festival, in partnership with Oxford University Press Pakistan, the Southbank Centre, Rukhsana Ahmad, and Bloomsbury Publishing (Pakistan) (whose KLF London team were Nadir Cheema, Nigham Shahid and Tariq Suleman).
It is organised by Oxford University Press (Pakistan) and the festival co-founders Amina Saiyid, Asif Farrukhi.
KLF seeks to create an intellectual space in which the diversity and pluralism in Pakistan’s society and this is expressed by the authors from literary and cultural traditions beyond Pakistan’s borders are freely accessible to people in an open and participatory manner.
The objectives of the Karachi Literature Festival are to represent intellectual traditions and cultural diversity through languages and academic disciplines; to create a forum for intellectual dialogue and inter-cultural harmony through celebration of writing, publications, and performing arts; to provide opportunities through which the world can see and connect with the literature, culture, and social ethos of Pakistan, and from which Pakistan can encounter what is happening in the world; to promote artistic expression and emerging Pakistani and international literary talent; to encourage counter narratives, cross-pollination of ideas, and apolitical views; and to reclaim public space in Karachi for literary and cultural exchanges.
The festival consists of literary discussions, book launches, and creative writing workshops.
There is also an opportunity to meet a galaxy of authors, get some book signings done and visit a book fair.
