LONDON: The UNESCO Creative Cities Network has added Lahore to its list, less than a year after the head of the UNESCO City of Literature Heidelberg
highlighted Lahore’s suitability for the program at the Lahore Literary Festival.
Being designated a City of Literature could prove a major boon for Lahore. The current Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led government has made great strides in
encouraging tourism to the country and this would help internationalise the city’s cultural importance further and attract more literary figures seeking like-
minded individuals to exchange ideas with.
“Seven consecutive years of the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) in Lahore has fostered a community of book-lovers to come in closer range of writers and poets
for intellectual stimulation and a humane understanding of the world especially in an age where authoritative journalism is under threat and information
becomes increasingly difficult to sift from the phenomenon of fake news,” founder and CEO Razi Ahmed said while hailing the move by UNESCO.
“The LLF has brought alive the city’s past and present traditions of literary and social thought and advanced the humanistic power of the written word to the
promising youth of the city,” he added. –Agencies
