NEW YORK: The annual Lahore Literary Festival (LLF), which is part of Lahore’s rich calendar of cultural offerings, in association with the Asia Society is hosting its second edition in New York today (Saturday). Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations Dr Maleeha Lodhi is scheduled to open the festival. The LLF held its overseas festivals in New York last May, and in London, last October. “These overseas initiatives have become institutionalised to celebrate and critically reflect upon writing and the arts from Pakistan,” says Nusrat Jamil, director of the LLF. “In global cities such as New York and London, with their large Pakistani communities, there’s been an absence of a civil society platform from Pakistan, and one that is anchored in Pakistan, to posit a Pakistan, through an exchange of ideas, a country which is complex, diverse and resilient as evidenced by its thriving scene in the creative and cultural realms,” added Razi Ahmed, the LLF founder. The one-day LLF event in New York will feature, among others, celebrated fiction writers Mohammed Hanif and Nadeem Aslam, acclaimed artist Shahzia Sikander, nonfiction author Ahmed Rashid, singer Tahira Syed, noted art historian FS Aijazuddin; Pulitzer-prize winning musical composer Du Yun and Basharat Peer, a writer of Kashmiri origin, who has recently authored A Question of Order; India, Turkey, and the Return of Strongmen. The packed schedule of sessions, with 21 speakers, will culminate with a qawali performance by Fareed Ayaz, Abu Mohammad and brothers. “We have seen last year at the maiden LLF in New York how qawali served as a means to bring together Pakistanis and South Asians from diverse religious, ethnic and economic groups,” opined Aneela Shah, treasurer of LLF overseas initiatives. “It evokes our rich homeland Sufi traditions of tolerance, inclusiveness and empathy, which in today’s divisive world are all the more critical to highlight,” she added.