New York: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, a poet and lover of literature, will inaugurate a three-day meet of poets, short story writers, novelists, playwrights and scholars from across India representing 14 major languages on September 25.

"We expect a Vajpayee, Prime Minister-poet, and not Vajpayee, Prime Minister-politician," Dr P Jayaraman, co-ordinator of the event, said. External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha will be the chief guest.

Vajpayee will be in New York on a week-long visit from September 19 during which he will address the UN General Assembly.

The conference, the first of its kind in New York, is being organised by Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan in US in co-operation with Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, as part of the 100th birth anniversary celebration of Jayaprakash Narayan. Among those attending would be former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. The theme of the meet is "Tradition, Modernity and Beyond".

Literary figures representing Kashmiri, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Sindhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Oriya, Bengali, Assamese, Hindi and Urdu will participate in the session.

They will also hold talks with Indian Americans from their respective regions to acquaint them about the latest trend in literature.

After inaugurating the meet, Vajpayee would sit in the audience and enjoy the poetry session. Each poet would read out a gist of his poem in English for the benefit of the audience and then recite it in his or her own language, Jayaraman said.

PTI