South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival Saturday

The tenth annual South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival, sponsored by NetSAP DC in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution's Asian Pacific American Program, will take place on November 13, 2010, from 10am to 5:30pm at the Baird Auditorium of the Smithsonian Institution`s National Museum of Natural History. This event is free and open to the public.

This year's festival will feature panel discussions, readings, and film screenings by internationally acclaimed writers and artists, including award-winning writer Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, bestselling author of One Amazing Thing; poet Pireeni Sundaralingam, editor of the first anthology of contemporary South Asian poetry, Indivisible; writer and artist Naeem Mohaiemen; journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran, author of the acclaimed Imperial Life in the Emerald City and National Editor at the Washington Post; and writer and activist Canyon Sam, author of the 2010 PEN-award winning lyrical memoir The Sky Train. There will be a screening of the film Shakti Rising (Shakti Pirakkudhu), created in association with writer and director Usha Rajeswari of Prakriti Jiva Media and Tara Thiagarajan, Chairperson and Managing Director of Madura. This film is a special tribute to the undying spirit and power of women throughout the world and based on the true-life stories of a group of women from Madurai, India. The final film, Udaan, is a 2010 Cannes Film Festival selection. This inspiring film chronicles the artistic ambitions of a young aspiring writer in the face of parental disapproval. Visit www.saltaf.org for more details on the festival.