With one of the longest continuous literary traditions in Europe, Wales is a distinctive and culturally rich part of the United Kingdom that is yet to be fully discovered by many, especially in India. The Welsh, being extremely proud of their heritage, have conscientiously revived and reinvented their traditional customs, especially those relating to language, poetry, literature and music, and have embraced cultural multilingualism that connects them to the rest of Europe.

Guest Nation Wales at the Kerala Literature Festival 2019 offers audiences a taste of the contemporary legacy of one of Europe’s oldest cultural traditions. Featuring leading authors and the innovative Invertigo Theatre Company with their show My Body Welsh, the Guest Nation Wales programme will also include a day dedicated to screenings of Welsh films related to literature, and an event with poets from Kerala, Wales and other European countries.

“I’m delighted that Wales is Guest Nation at the Kerala Literature Festival. Our nation will be represented at the Kerala Literature Festival by some of our most prominent writers and they will be excellent ambassadors for Welsh culture. We’re pleased too that the festival audiences will also have an opportunity to discover Wales through theatre and film – and the selected titles draw on our rich poetry and literary tradition, both contemporary and historical. Both Literature Across Frontiers and Wales Literature Exchange have been working in partnership with Indian literary organizations for ten years now, with the support of Wales Arts International, the Arts Council of Wales, the British Council and the European Union’s Culture and Creative Europe Programmes. Wales is an internationalist, outward looking nation and our continued cultural exchange with India is an important aspect of our international strategy."