Jaya Bachchan to attend Kolkata literary meet

Veteran Bollywood actress Jaya Bachchan will be one of the key participants at the fourth edition of Kolkata Literary Meet (KaLaM) here, beginning Jan 23 next year.

The organisers had earlier confirmed the presence of noted author Ruskin Bond and Daman Singh, daughter of former prime minister Manmohan Singh at the gala event, a confluence of literature, culture and cinema.

"The sessions have not been scheduled yet but she (Jaya) will be coming," an organiser told IANS on Monday.

The literary meet will run from Jan 23-27, 2015. Last year, poet-lyricist Javed Akhtar and actor Naseeruddin Shah had highlighted intersecting threads of theatre, cinema and literature at the meet, while Indian cinema veterans Sharmila Tagore and Soumitra Chatterjee paid rich tributes to master storyteller Satyajit Ray.

In the next edition, children's much-loved author Bond will inaugurate the festival as its guest of honour.

Singh, author of "Strictly Personal", that traces the journey of the former prime minister and his wife Gursharan Kaur's life from the 1930s to 2004, will participate in a segment dedicated to memoirs.

The other names include American writer Joanna Rakoff, historian Rudrangshu Mukherjee and music composer Shantanu Moitra.

Other highlights are a section on new writing in English, in addition to poet-lyricist Javed Akhtar's translation of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's works.