Islamabad, Feb 20 (IANS): The third edition of the Lahore Literature Festival (LLF) commenced Friday, a media report said.

The festival was founded in 2012 and was first launched in 2013, Dawn online reported.

The three-day LLF aims to explore the dialogue and interface between literature and the arts that shape Pakistan and especially Lahore's cultural, social, economic, and political frameworks.

Like any other literary platform, discussions in the LLF too, revolve around fiction and non-fiction writing, music, painting, film making, architecture, politics and a strong attempt to reclaim Lahore's varied literary traditions.

Urdu literature will also be promoted along with Seraiki and Punjabi literature this year.

Intizar Husain and Kishwar Naheed, whose contribution to Urdu poetry and prose have cemented their place as literary icons, will be present.

Husain's groundbreaking 1979 novel, "Basti", explored the partition of India and the life of a migrant in the new nation of Pakistan through the life of the protagonist, Zakir.

His novel, Naya Ghar (The New House) captured one of the most difficult periods in Pakistan's existence under Ziaul Haq's dictatorship.

Intizar Husain was one of the ten finalists for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013 and has been awarded the French civil honour, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Naheed, who has also translated foreign language poems into Urdu, has had several of her works translated into English and Spanish.