Malaysia’s leading celebration of stories returns for its 15th edition! This year’s George Town Literary Festival explores Urban Myths and Memories through panels, readings, performances, and workshops featuring 37 writers and artists from 13 countries.

George Town Literary Festival 2025 

Malaysia’s leading celebration of stories returns for its 15th edition! This year’s George Town Literary Festival explores Urban Myths and Memories through panels, readings, performances, and workshops featuring 37 writers and artists from 13 countries.

Join us in Penang’s heritage heart for three days of conversation, creativity, and discovery. Admission is free with a Festival Pass, except for workshops and select events.

Explore the full programme breakdown on the official George Town Literary Festival website.

Programme at a glance:

29 November

4:30 pm - 5:30 pm

Panel: Intimacies and Inheritances

Location

Wawasan Hall

The private is never only personal. Writers often transform memory, intimacy, and inherited experience into stories that confront wider histories and contemporary wounds. This panel brings together three novelists whose works explore desire, vulnerability, and the aftershocks of trauma. They reflect on how literature can hold tenderness and violence side by side, giving voice to what is silenced in family, society, and nation.

Speakers: Ratih Kumala, Cyntha Hariadi, Lize Spit
Moderator/Host: Sharon Bakar