The third Galle Literary Festival, which was attended by thousands of local and foreign book lovers including world famous authors, concluded on Sunday, in the environs of the Galle Fort.

The Festival launched on January 28, at the Martin Wickremasinghe Museum grounds, was dubbed by Harpers Bazar as the "No 1 Literary Festival in the world."

Participants were given the opportunity to interact with international writers, including icons such as Germaine Greer, Edna O’Brien and Thomas Keneally, author of the Booker Prize winning Schindler’s Ark. Debut novelists Tahmima Anam and V. V. Ganeshananthan, celebrated travel writers Colin Thubron and Pico Iyer and leading journalists M. J. Akbar and Tarun Tejpal, added great value and interest in the festival.

The programme included daily workshops for aspiring writers and sneak previews for readers of what the authors were working on. In addition, a vibrant fringe festival, ran parallel to each day’s events.

Founder of the GLF, Geoffrey Dobbs described the event as "very unique, intimate and relaxing. The most important thing is that writers and audiences like coming to it. The Festival is evolving and is already on the world literary calendar. It has raised the profile of Sri Lankan writers as well as the country. We aim to become the festival of South Asia".

The overall objective is to encourage Sri Lankans to read English, its authors to write, interact with foreign authors and also promote the Southern Province as a tourist destination, he observed.

Dobbs, revealed that he was also working on launching a film festival on the lines of GLF.