At the AK Lit Fest, 2017

Sri Lanka has two major literary festivals that people hear about.

One’s the Galle Lit Fest, which is a high powered forum that has a lot of money going in and out and puts the Galle holiday scene in overdrive just after New Year’s. GLF is a 1%-er event: tickets are expensive, the stay at Galle doubly so, and over the years it’s turned into as much a marker of social prestige as much as a gathering of literary people.

The other festival is Annasi and Kadalagotu, the brainchild of aviation pio...