new delhi last years literary retreat at neemrana saw sir vidia lose his cool expect more turbulence at the forthcoming south asian women writers conference at sanskriti cultural centre in the foothills of the aravallis from february 16 to 21there will be 30 competing voices from five countries were hoping to have debates controversies and positive arguments during these five days said morna nance counsellor cultural affairs of the british councilthese women writers have faced challenges in their countries to break barriers and traditions just to be heard and read they will debate influences in writing provocations in style and trends in womens writing for instance we have invited rachel holmes from amazoncom to talk about new media and the opportunities internet can provide authorsthis womens literary festival also has real stories of courage like the kurdish poet choman hardi 28 who works as an interpreter with asylum seekers in croydon shes also the chairman of exiled writers ink or indias new voice bama a dalit who became a nun disillusioned she left the convent to write her semifictional book karukku a bold account of being a dalit in a unique and daring style pakistans uzma aslam khan who in her book trespassing questions the right of individual freedom in a restrictive society sri lankan playwriter sumathy sivamohan who stages plays to address political issues from the indian literary world rukmini bhaya nair radhika chopra githa hariharan bulbul sharma nabaneeta dev sen suzie tharu sagarika ghosh esther david mini krishnan and indira goswami will be attending the festivalthe conference will be a narrative of women who have become experts at storytelling they will participate in sessions on issues related to censorship translation publishing overcoming gender linguistic cultural and geographical barriers political conflict new media and popular culture the discussions will break barriers as we want women authors to talk about their inhibitions were not going to limit ourselves to gender issues but also talk about content and art of writing said nancein fact nepalese writer manjushree thapa author of the tutor of history will be going to st stephens college to debate on provocations in womens writing we want to take this discussion to colleges so that young writers can participate in this programme as well