Dubai, UAE — The Ananke Literature Festival 2026 will host “Listening When The Subaltern Speaks,” an online panel presented by Usawa Literary Review, at the festival’s seventh edition, airing August 13–15, 2026 on Ananke’s YouTube channel and social media platforms. Anchored in the belief that “literary publishing from the margins is a concerted feminist labour practice,” the session brings together editors, curators, and poets working to sustain literary momentum in some of the world’s most constrained circumstances.
Writings by Afghan Women, the Matchbox Afghan Special Issue published in September 2025, remains one of Usawa’s most groundbreaking editorial projects. The issue revealed the immense ethical commitment, nuance, and collaborative attentiveness required between authors, readers, translators, and editors to sustain a literary momentum of resistance in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. From a poem by an anonymous Afghan child to reflections by a journalist rendered unemployed under Taliban restrictions who continues to read Dostoevsky and Camus, the session opens conversations around resilience, testimony, and storytelling across borders — in close alignment with the festival’s exploration of unmasking history and the hidden voices of the Global South.
In the summer of 2026, Usawa Literary Review also published a collaborative issue with The Little Journal of Northeast India. Featuring fiction, poetry, translation, and non-fiction from and about Northeast India, the issue emerged from the same messy, deeply human collaborative spirit that underlies the painstaking feminist labour behind diverse literary production. The panel will foreground the political and socio-economic realities that shape such literary work, resonating with stories of migration and belonging between borders.
Together, the discussion seeks not only to foster meaningful literary connections, but to continue building forms of resistance against institutional structures where marginalized voices are too often silenced.
A Word from Ananke
“This panel foregrounds literary publishing as what it truly is — an act of resistance, solidarity, and collective listening. At a time when institutional and political structures continue to marginalize vulnerable communities, conversations like these are urgently necessary cultural interventions. We are honoured to give this dialogue a home at the festival,” said the organizers of the Ananke Literature Festival.
The Speakers
Shiron Antony (Managing Editor, The Little Journal of Northeast India) is a postgraduate in English Language and Literature from Calicut University with a postgraduate diploma in journalism. He works as a communication and quality lead for an American multinational company and is co-curator of the archiving initiative Houses of Bengaluru. He lives in Bangalore with his partner, two cats, and a dog.
Prarthana Banikya (Founder & Curator, The Little Journal of Northeast India) is a recipient of the Orange Flower Award for poetry and a Pushcart Prize nominee, and co-curator of Houses of Bengaluru. A sociology graduate from Delhi University with a certificate in poetry from the London School of Journalism, she spent her formative years in Assam, which inspires much of her writing. Her work has appeared in The Indian Express, Scroll, Homegrown, Mid-Day, Architectural Digest, Asia Writes, Feminism India, Pratilipi, and elsewhere. She lives in Bangalore, where she leads the Learning and Development department at ansrsource.
Shikha S. Lamba is a jewelry designer and poet living in Hong Kong, and co-founder and co-editor of the online magazine Coffee and Conversations. Her poems and photography have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Passionate about raising awareness of women’s health and mental health through her writing, her poems often explore feminism and social injustice.
Smita Sahay (Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Usawa Literary Review) is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Usawa Literary Review and Matchbox by Usawa, and was Associate Editor of Veils, Halos and Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women. Her poems, short stories, and essays have been published in national and international anthologies and publications.
About Usawa Literary Review
Since its commencement, Usawa Literary Review has proudly served as a vibrant literary platform featuring both marginalized and distinguished voices from South Asia, the Middle East, and the wider Global South. With 1,471 published pieces by 580 writers across 14 languages — including Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam, Sindhi, Marathi, Odia, and Pashto — Usawa has grown into one of the most diverse online archives of South Asian literary writing. Its commitment to embracing, documenting, and publishing the broader historical, structural, and personal divisions that shape mainstream literary production remains a constant ethical pillar.
About the Ananke Literature Festival
Launched in 2020 by Ananke (www.anankemag.com) — a digital media and development platform focused on technology, diversity, innovation, media, and literature across the Global South — the Ananke Literature Festival is a fully online event celebrated for creating meaningful conversations about the written word, publishing, diversity, empowerment, and social justice. Its seventh edition, themed Fault Lines: An Unmasking, airs August 13–15, 2026, with pre-recorded sessions broadcast on Ananke’s YouTube channel and across its social media platforms. Past speakers include Urvashi Butalia, Naveen Kishore, Feryal Ali Gauhar, Mohammad Hanif, Meena Kandasamy, and many more.
Media Contact: Sabin Muzaffar, Founder & Executive Editor, Ananke — sabin@anankemag.com | Namrata, Festival Director — editor.anankemag@gmail.com | www.anankemag.com | @anankemag
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