The 2025 Edition of Ananke’s Festival of Literature (AnankeWLF) arrives at a time when the world is yet again facing an onslaught on free speech and freedom of expression. It is an unprecedented moment, yet it is also history repeating itself over and over again. In this multipolar world, with bigotry, misogyny and fascism spewing hate and othering voices through salacious media messaging and indoctrination, it is time to move past looking back and speaking truth to power
Arpita Das, Founder-Publisher of Yoda Press, moderates a session with three Yoda Press authors who epitomize what it means to ‘speak truth to power’ through their words.
The panel consists of Arshi Javaid, author of Yaadgah: Memories of Srinagar, a collection of essays dedicated to the old city of Srinagar; Namita Waikar, author of Farmers Protest! A Movement for Our Times, which narrates why Indian farmers were compelled to resist, and how they are the first responders to the challenges posed by climate change; and Neeta Kolhatkar, author of The Feared: Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners, where Kolhakar gathers interviews with eleven political prisoners—sometimes their loved ones—discussing their conditions across multiple prisons in India.
Acclaimed female-led publishing house Yoda Press was founded in 2004 with an alternative publishing vision. It aims to create lists around subjects which are not usually a priority for other publishers across South Asia and beyond, even though they have a critical presence in contemporary discourse, authorship and an audience. Yoda Press is known for publishing on subjects such as sexuality, popular culture, cities and urbanism, architecture as a lived experience, and new perspectives in Indian history and sociology.
The three-day, digital event will commence on April 29th, 2025 and will be live streamed on Ananke’s YouTube page; with links shared on its Facebook page as well.
With the theme, Speaking Truth to Power, conversations will also focus on the manufacturing and production of truth and its relationship with the hegemony of socio-economic, cultural and political structures, apparatuses as well as consciousness.
Yoda Press is a long time Ananke Women in Literature Festival ally with the founder Arpita Das, one of Ananke’s key advisors. The fourth edition of Ananke’s LitFest celebrated 20 years of Yoda Press last year and Aprita Das delivered the festival’s opening address.
