Gomti Book Festival 2026: Yogi Adityanath to Inaugurate Today

Gomti Book Festival 2026: Yogi Adityanath to Inaugurate Event at Lucknow University Today

Lucknow will be a bit more literary starting today, September 12, with the fifth edition of the Gomti Book Festival 2026. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is expecting to draw a lot of attention as he is expected to inaugurate a nine-day festival at the University of Lucknow. The festival has been organised by the National Book Trust (NBT), India in collaboration with the Government of Uttar Pradesh and the University of Lucknow.

The festival will be held from September 12 to September 20, 2026 and will include books, writers, readers, students, artists and performers and will turn the campus of the University of Lucknow into a congregation point for literature and culture.

Gomti Book Festival 2026: Key Details

The University of Lucknow has also published an official notice regarding arrangements for the Gomti Book Festival 2026 at Shivaji Sports Ground, confirming the university's role as the venue for this year's event.

Yogi Adityanath Will Inaugurate the Gomti Book Festival

As per the local news, the opening ceremony will begin at 10:45 AM on September 12, and Yogi Adityanath will formally inaugurate the festival. The festival will not be only about books and bring a book-selling fair, but will be a literary and cultural gathering and major attraction. NBT Director Yuvraj Malik has said that the fifth edition will be a major attraction for young authors, speakers, intellectuals and multilingual writers and artists.

250 Book Stalls, 121 Publishers

250 stalls representing 121 publishers will showcase thousands of books in Hindi, English, Urdu, Awadhi and other Indian languages. The festival will be free for visitors. The Rashtriya e-Pustakalaya is a major attraction for book lovers. The festival will provide access to thousands of digital books in Indian languages and across genres.

Gomti Book Festival 2026: Literary and Cultural Events

There's more to the book fair than buying the perfect paperback, and that is especially evident in the schedule that includes discussions and sessions exploring women's identity, youth literature, translation, heritage, traditional and folk expression, science and space, spirituality, sustainable development, and contemporary journalism.

Some of the other prominent book fair participants include Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, Padma Shri Awardee Vidya Vindu Singh, Malini Awasthi, and Shantanu Gupta. A special session by the Delhi Lieutenant Governor, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, is also expected. The focus of the session that Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla will conduct on 15 September for students and young adults will be the theme of ‘From Earth to Space: Flight of Dreams.’

Special Focus on Children and Young Readers

The festival has dedicated spaces for children, and one of them is the Bal Mandap managed by the National Centre for Children's Literature. The program has storytelling, puppet shows, creative writing, Vedic mathematics, workshops on mindfulness, clay art, calligraphy, mandala art, poetry, and also plenty of quizzes and competitions. Shukla will be there for children also, to engage with them.

Evenings will be packed with cultural performances, and along with the book festival, it will showcase Kathak, folk, theatre, music, mushaira, and dastangoi.

Why The Gomti Book Festival Matters

With new challenges to print literature, such as short-form digital content and artificial intelligence, the Gomti Book Festival must be appreciated for its efforts to counter the challenges to print literacy. One of the senior coordinators, Chandra Prakash, clarified that the internet is not curated as data, and therefore, books remain significant as online content is not verifiable or authentic.

Books indeed sell through recommendations, but taking part in the festival is about valuing books over using them as recommendations.

Final Thoughts

The Gomti Book Festival 2026 will provide audiences the opportunity to enjoy books and other forms of entertainment, including science, music, theatre, and heritage for nine days. The students and families of Lucknow will enjoy the hundreds of exhibiting stalls. They will also enjoy the Children's Pavilion, author meet-and-greets, cultural entertainment, and other great personalities from science and the public domain.

Each of these parks will be free to the public. It is expected to draw book festival readers who are beyond the traditional. With Yogi Adityanath beginning the fifth edition today, September 12, the growing literary activities in Lucknow will benefit from the festival.

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