The Kerala Literary Festival has been conceived as a rare platform chiefly meant for Malayalam writers of four generations to meet, discuss and debate issues of common concern in these traumatic times when the very fundamental right of expression is being challenged by various regressive forces and their organisations in our society. One of the themes we have chosen to focus on this time is this very challenge to the freedom of artists and writers. The Festival that will also have some eminent Indian writers from outside Kerala, will also look at diverse movements and trends in contemporary literature in its varied genres and forms like poetry, fiction, drama, and literary criticism and other forms of discursive prose besides the kinship between literature and other arts like theatre, film and the plastic arts.