Culture, commerce, And The Rise Of Kerala’s Literature Festivals

The Kerala Legislature Complex, which houses the State Assembly, wears a different look in the month of January. A space usually occupied by politicians and journalists transforms into a vibrant gathering place for writers, intellectuals, and political and social observers for a week. This is the time of the Kerala Legislature International Book Festival (KLIBF), hosted by the State Assembly.

The fourth edition of the festival concluded last week. It witnessed the release of hundreds of books and saw writers, politicians, and cultural figures engage in debates, discussions, and reflections on the world and their work. With its fourth edition completed in 2026, the Kerala Legislature International Book Festival stands as a significant cultural initiative, conceived and implemented under the leadership of Speaker A. N. Shamseer.

In December and January, Kerala hosts some of the country’s largest literary festivals, featuring writers and intellectuals of international repute. Major media houses such as Malayala Manorama and Mathrubhumi, along with DC Books—one of the largest publishing houses in the country—are among the key organisers of these festivals. In addition to these major festivals, local literary festivals are being organised by various organisations across the state. Political organisations like the DYFI, the youth wing of the CPIM, have also conducted literature festivals.

“Kerala’s dense network of libraries once formed the backbone of its reading culture, nurturing habits of inquiry and the free exchange of ideas. But by the 1990s, for a variety of social and cultural reasons, footfalls in libraries had begun to decline. In response to this quiet erosion, the idea of a literature festival took shape. We began asking ourselves how reading could be revitalised in a new age,” said Ravi DeeCee, of DC Books. “The idea was to take everything—not just books, but the debates as well—out of the four walls of libraries and place them in the public sphere.” He adds.

That impulse eventually gave rise to the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF), now in its ninth edition, held every January in Kozhikode, where conversations once confined to library halls spill into open spaces, drawing thousands into dialogue with writers, thinkers, and ideas.

The scale of the Kerala Literature Festival underscores the changing ecology of reading and public intellectual engagement in the state. According to the organisers, last year’s edition recorded a footfall of nearly six lakh over four days, pointing to the growing appeal of literature festivals as mass cultural events.

Ravi DeeCee. of DC Books argues that such festivals have played a measurable role in reversing the decline in reading habits. “It is not only popular fiction that is benefiting,” he said. “There is also a growing readership for serious and quality literature.” He noted that the festival has also become a platform for reintroducing legendary writers such as Vaikom Muhammad Basheer to newer generations, suggesting a successful mediation between literary heritage and contemporary audiences.

“Audience composition further reinforces this shift. Nearly 65 per cent of last year’s participants were young people, with students travelling from universities outside the state, including Jawaharlal Nehru University, the University of Hyderabad, and even Kashmir University. Such participation indicates that the festival is increasingly functioning as a national intellectual space, attracting politically and socially engaged youth and expanding Kerala’s literary influence beyond regional boundaries.” Ravi DeeCee added.

Actively supported by the Kerala government, the Kerala Literature Festival has come to be recognised as one of the state’s major cultural events, on par with the International Film Festival of Kerala, the Kochi–Muziris Biennale, and the Thrissur Pooram. Its growing stature is reflected in the scale and diversity of its programming. This year’s edition will feature figures from across disciplines, including astronaut Sunita Williams, Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and Olympian Ben Johnson among others

KLF has also emerged as a trendsetter in Kerala’s literary festival landscape, prompting other cultural institutions and media houses to launch similar initiatives. Mathrubhumi, one of the state’s leading media organisations, now hosts a literature festival in the capital, Thiruvananthapuram. According to M. V. Shreyams Kumar, Managing Director of Mathrubhumi, the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters has, from its inception, attracted a significant youth audience, challenging the popular assumption that younger generations are moving away from reading.

“At a time when the free expression of ideas is under tremendous threat, we conceive the festival as a celebration of plurality,” Shreyams Kumar said. While the festival is not designed as a profit-making venture, he emphasised that it operates on a sustainable business model. “People and institutions are choosing to associate with us, and the festival also contributes to boosting the sales of books published by Mathrubhumi Books and others,” he added.

Together, these developments suggest that literature festivals in Kerala are no longer isolated cultural events but part of a broader ecosystem in which state support, media institutions, and publishing interests intersect to sustain public intellectual life.

Malayala Manorama has also joined this expanding cultural landscape with the Manorama Hortus Arts and Literature Festival. The festival takes its name from Hortus Malabaricus, ‘the 17th-century botanical compendium that meticulously documented the rich flora of the Malabar coast, signalling an attempt to root a contemporary cultural event in Kerala’s intellectual and historical legacy’. Manorama Hortus held its second edition in November 2025.

For writers, these festivals function as more than promotional platforms. Author K. R. Meera views them as sites of intellectual recalibration. “Literature festivals help to recalibrate our perceptions,” she said. “What attracts me most is that they create spaces where I can meet writers from around the world. The interaction with the younger generation—especially my readers—gives me immense satisfaction as a writer.”

Meera argues that the strong presence of young participants challenges the notion that contemporary audiences are averse to serious reading. “The participation of the younger generation in these festivals defies the idea that they are indifferent to sustained reading,” she noted, adding that literature festivals, taken together, are reinvigorating Kerala’s cultural ecosystem.  “Debates and talk shows by writers contribute immensely to the plurality of ideas” adds NE Sudheer, writer.

Contemporary literature festivals increasingly extend beyond the realm of literature alone. Alongside writers and poets, these platforms host debates on contemporary politics, science, technology, and even food cultures, reflecting the widening scope of public discourse. For some observers, the proliferation of literature festivals in Kerala signals the state’s consolidation as a space where ideas—often contentious—can be debated with relative freedom.

Senior journalist M. P. Basheer, founder-editor of Join The Story, a digital current affairs platform, locates this trend within a broader political context. “In recent years, Kerala has emerged as a hub of dissent,” he said. “After the Modi government came to power, the state witnessed movements such as the Kiss of Love protest, which challenged moral policing, and beef festivals, which responded to attempts at stigmatising beef consumption. Literature festivals, despite their inherent elitism, have also become spaces that nurture debates around political dissent.”

This expanding public sphere also has implications for the publishing industry. While Kerala already hosts several established publishing houses—led by DC Books and Mathrubhumi Books—new and independent publishers with distinctive catalogues are steadily emerging. The cultural ecosystem fostered by literature festivals has created visibility, audiences, and market opportunities for these smaller players, enabling them to participate in and shape Kerala’s evolving literary economy.

Not everyone, however, views the proliferation of literature festivals uncritically. Some see them as commercial ventures that cloak market interests in the language of culture. Kamalram Sajeev, former editor-in-charge of Mathrubhumi’s literary magazine and now head of RAT Publishers, remains sceptical of claims that these festivals make deep or lasting cultural contributions. “I don’t believe these festivals are creating anything profoundly cultural,” he said. “But they are certainly contributing to the sale of books.”

Yet, books, writers, and libraries have historically played a decisive role in shaping Kerala’s cultural and political milieu. In that longer view, the burgeoning literature festivals across the state can be read as a contemporary manifestation of society’s enduring engagement with the written word—an engagement that persists and even takes new forms in the digital era.