As a genre, crime writing, whether it be fiction or true crime, brings in much more intrigue than any other type of writing, believes Srikrishna Ramamoorthy. “I specifically use the word intrigue because after you’ve read something, you often find it so hard to believe that someone would have gone to those lengths to do those things,” says the Bengaluru-based venture capital investor and co-founder of the Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF).Crime writing, therefore, was an “obvious choice” to kickstart BLF’s foray into a genre festival, with Dead Write, a literary festival dedicated exclusively to crime writing, debuting in the city this weekend.“This has been something that has been on our minds for a while,” says Srikrishna, pointing out that with BLF now entering its 15th year, “we should look at ways in which we grow as an organisation, expand our offerings, our repertoire.” The idea, in the long run, is to go beyond just BLF and have a few genre-focused festivals in addition to the flagship one, he says. “It all comes down to the response we get to this, and how it plays out.”
Journalist, writer and filmmaker Agni Sreedhar
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Also read: A walk that peeks into the literary history of BengaluruWhile, of course, Dead Write is not as big or diverse as BLF, it does boast an impressive line-up that includes crime fiction writers, journalists, police officials, and even the former-gangster-turned-writer Agni Sreedhar. “He used to be an underworld don in Bengaluru, now reformed, and has written two books: My Days in the Underworld: Rise of the Bangalore Mafia and The Gangster’s Gita,” says Srikrishna, noting that Sreedhar is a popular, deeply engaging conversationalist.
