DHAKA: For the fourth year, Hay Festival Dhaka is scheduled to be held from November 20–22 at the historic ground of the Bangla Academy in city.

Hay Festival Dhaka Director Sadaf Saaz Siddiqi announced about the three-day long festival in a press briefing at Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) on Tuesday.

Sixty foreign writers and 200 Bangladeshi writers, artists, philosophers and scientists will attend the festival as main and panel speakers.

Telling stories in different ways, and pushing the boundaries of the mind, are themes in 2014.

The main speakers include international and local writers, poets, artists, philosophers and scientists: Shashi Tharoor, Syed Shamsul Haq, Jung Chang, Joy Goswami, William Dalrymple, John Ralston Saul, Javed Jahangir, Marcus du Sautoy, Zia Haider Rahman, Rana Dasgupta, Mirza Waheed, Lucy Hawking, Shaheen Akhter and Gideon Haigh.

Panel discussions at the festival will cover urban metamorphosis with all its tensions.

Speakers will celebrate the seeking of truth and knowledge through both ancient wisdom and scientific thinking, and we will explore the intersection between the personal and the political.

Adviser of the festival Kazi Anis Ahmed expected that people will help them in the future for continuing the festival in Bangladesh.

The festival will be open to all and it will continur from 8:00am to 8:00pm.

The closing ceremony will be held at 6:00pm on November 22.

BDST: 1341 HRS, NOV 18, 2014