South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival (SALTAF)
Annual festival celebrating South Asian literary and theater arts

Chairpersons: Anjali Kamani and Joydip Kundu
Contact: saltaf@netsap.org
SALTAF list serve: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saltaf/
Please email: saltaf-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to subscribe to our list serve.

This year's South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival (SALTAF) will be held on November 15, 2008 in the Baird Auditorium at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Admission is free. SALTAF is one of NetSAP-DC's biggest events.

SALTAF seeks to celebrate the diversity of South Asian-themed literary and theater arts; increase awareness of South Asian arts in the D.C. area; offer both established and up-and-coming artists the opportunity to reach a wider audience; and provide a forum for artists to discuss their works with each other and with their audience. The festival was started by members of the NetSAP-DC book club to meet the authors of the books they were reading. A theater arts component was added in 2003 to broaden the event's scope to include playwrights, screenwriters, directors, and actors. SALTAF 2008 marks the fifth year NetSAP-DC is partnering with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program. This relationship has established SALTAF as a premier showcase for South Asian-themed literary and theater arts in North America.

Last year's participants included Madhur Jaffrey, Amitava Kumar, Rishi Reddi, Vic Sarin, and Thrity Umrigar. The event screened the films Loins of Punjab Presents and Partition. Past participants include Meena Alexander, Samina Ali, Thalassa Ali, Nadeem Aslam, Anita Rau Badami, Anjali Banerjee, Raj Basu, Jonah Blank, Tanuj Chopra, Geeta Citygirl, William Dalrymple, David Davidar, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Sabrina Dhavan, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Nisha Ganatra, Amitav Ghosh, Anna Ghosh, Mohsin Hamid, Nagesh Kukunoor, Vishnu Mathur, Deepa Mehta, Ved Mehta, Satish Menon, Bharati Mukherjee, Madhusree Mukherjee, Mira Nair, Michael Olmert, Vijay Prashad, Rohit Colin Rao, Devyani Saltzman, Shyam Selvadurai, Mitra Sen, Kamila Shamsie, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, Bapsi Sidwa, Indu Sundaresan, Sara Suleri, Tarun Tejpal, Shashi Tharoor, Samrat Upadhyay, and M.G. Vassanji.

For more information on this year's SALTAF, visit www.saltaf.org.