The South Asian Literature and Art Festival returns to the Bay Area on September 26 and 27, celebrating the theme “Global Gaze, South Asian Soul” with a diverse lineup of artists and thinkers.
The South Asian Literature and Art Festival (SALA) is set to return to the Bay Area on September 26 and 27, 2026. Recognized as the largest event of its kind in the United States, this multi-disciplinary festival is produced by Art Forum SF and will take place at Menlo College in Atherton, California, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Now in its seventh year, SALA has evolved into one of North America’s premier celebrations of South Asian literature and the arts. The festival brings together Nobel laureates, award-winning authors, filmmakers, artists, scholars, and thousands of attendees from the Bay Area and beyond.
This year’s theme, “Global Gaze, South Asian Soul,” delves into the profound human movements that shape our world. It seeks to explore the slow yet significant shifts of people, ideas, and societies that eventually manifest as today’s headlines. While news often highlights extraordinary events—such as war, migration, political upheaval, economic disruption, and social division—these narratives frequently overlook the underlying stories of compassion, resilience, love, sacrifice, creativity, and community.
In an era when headlines often reduce individuals to mere statistics, SALA 2026 encourages audiences to look beyond stereotypes and uncover the human stories that lie beneath the surface of the news.
These quieter narratives reveal how individuals endure hardships, rebuild their lives, care for one another, and maintain hope. They are often found in literature and the arts, providing the emotional, cultural, and historical context that headlines cannot convey. Behind every immigration statistic is a family; behind every conflict is a memory; behind every economic shift are lives transformed; and behind every social movement are ordinary people navigating extraordinary circumstances.
SALA 2026 will showcase stories of exceptional creativity, scientific discovery, literature, entrepreneurship, philosophy, resilience, and cultural imagination that span continents and generations.
“We examine and celebrate different points of view but also recognize that ultimately, we are all alike and borders are fluid like our thoughts. We aim to provide a platform that will spark an enlightened, erudite, and immersive engagement,” say the festival organizers.
The festival will feature contemporary local, national, and international authors and artists participating in keynotes, panels, and stage presentations covering a wide array of topics and literary forms. Attendees can expect a fair-like atmosphere, complete with independent bookstores and publishers, literary nonprofits, writing programs, open-mic poetry readings, outdoor performances, food stalls, and various related exhibitors.
This year’s exceptional lineup includes internationally acclaimed writers, thinkers, and changemakers such as Nobel Prize-winning scientist Venki Ramakrishnan, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kailash Satyarthi, renowned artist Salima Hashmi, celebrated animator and author Sanjay Patel, and novelists Karan Mahajan, Aatish Taseer, Manil Suri, Amitava Kumar, and the multiple award-winning author Lakshmi Puri.
The festival will also feature writers Kausar Munir, Devi Laskar, Shobhaa De, and Madhushree Ghosh, as well as filmmakers Kanishka Aggarwal and Kajri Akhtar, alongside many other distinguished voices from Pakistan, Nepal, and the unique Punjabi-Mexican community in California.
SALA partners with several esteemed organizations, including Stanford University, Asia Society, the Asian American Writers Workshop (AAWW), UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Cruz, along with India Currents, Off the Cuff, and India Post, which serves as a media sponsor for the Indian community.
Tickets for SALA 2026 can be purchased at www.salafestival.org.
According to India Currents, this year’s festival promises to be a vibrant celebration of South Asian culture and creativity.