Mumbai: The Max City Valley of Words (VoW) Literature Festival will return for its second edition on 28 and 29 March in Mumbai, with events scheduled at the National Gallery of Modern Art and Homi Bhabha University.
According to the organisers, the festival will bring together authors, scholars, policymakers and professionals from the strategy and governance space to discuss the theme, ‘Between War and Peace: One World, Many Words’. This year’s edition will continue to focus on public discussion of contemporary issues, with the organisers saying the festival seeks to reflect on a world shaped by conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.
Festival director Dr Sanjeev Chopra of VoW and Probal DasGupta of MaxCity are leading the event. DasGupta said books, ideas and conversations can help people understand the consequences and origins of conflicts, while also widening space for differing views. Chopra said the theme ‘One World, Many Words’ reflects a contemporary situation in which words struggle to keep pace with the changes taking place across the world. He added that the festival aims to bring multiple perspectives together to understand geopolitics and domestic debates.
The two-day event will feature a range of writers and speakers, including TCA Raghavan, Amish Tripathi, Saurabh Mukherjea, Minhas Merchant, Luis Miranda and Tom Cooper, whose book, ’88-Hours War: India-Pakistan War of May 2025,’ will be discussed at the festival. Probal DasGupta will speak on his recent book on General Sundarji, while Sanjeev Chopra will present his book on Lal Bahadur Shastri. Other sessions will include Shinjini Kumar’s ‘Busy Women’ and Jyotsna Mohan’s ‘Pratap’.
The programme will also include sessions featuring Mangesh Sawant and Chaitanya Giri. Women participants such as Kiran Manral, Eika Banerjee, sailors Dilna and Roopa, and media veterans Sandeep Unnithan and Vaibhav Purandare are also part of the line-up. Commodore Srikant Kesnur will lead maritime panels on the Cholas and the oceans.
Organisers said the festival is intended to give emerging writers a platform to present new work and engage with a wider intellectual community. They also said it aims to encourage reading, books and critical thinking among younger audiences, with the choice of venue at Homi Bhabha University and the link with Mumbai University reflecting that focus.