Commemorating literary diversity, creative spirit and celebrating the best of literature to come out of Odisha, the Mystic Kalinga Festival, an international poetry festival, is all set to host its fourth edition on February 8th and 9th, 2020. One of the biggest events of the year on mysticism, storytelling, puranas, music, classical & folk dance and spiritual literature, the Kalinga festival will be held at Swosti Premium in Bhubaneswar.
With the central theme of this year&rsquos edition being &lsquoDivine Madness Knowledge, Ecstacy and Transformation&rsquo, the focus will be on Bhakti, a celebration of the formless divine invoked by Kabir, Tulsidas, Ravidas, Adi Shankara and Meerabai. Over 100 eminent artists are expected to grace the event including artists like Amish Tripathi, Kailash Kher, Shubha Mudgal, Arundati Subramaniam and the like.
 The two-day festival, based in the capital city of Odisha will see poets from all over the country immerse in the vibrant atmosphere and recite poems and exchange opinions on their favourite works. One of the major highlights of the event will be the Mystic Kalinga Awards, to be conferred upon two leading literary luminaries with a prize money of one lakh rupees. While the Mystic Kalinga Literary Award - Odia, will be extended for towering contributions to the Odia language, the second award meant for Indian and global languages will be conferred on a personality with corpus work in any Indian or international language. An international jury has been instituted to shortlist the nominees and awardees.
First instituted in 2017, the festival was aimed at recognising and felicitating prolific writers, poets and performers. As stated by the founder and director of the festival, Rashmi Ranjan Parida, there&rsquos a need to focus on literature, especially on history, mysticism, music, dance and spiritual literature, and the Mystic Kalinga Festival aims at celebrating the spirit of mystics and reflects on the lyrical and creative aspects of the work and teachings of philosophers and poet saints in a fulfilling two-day programme.