Jaipur Literature Festival

The Jaipur Literature Festival is an annual literary festival taking place in the pink city of Jaipur. The Diggi Palace Hotel serves as the main venue of the festival. The Jaipur Literature Festival is the biggest literary festival not just in India, but in Asia, and was described by Miranda Seymour in the Mail on Sunday of the 10th August 2008 as "the grandest literary Festival of them all". It is held each year in Jaipur, Rajasthan during the month of January, usually in the Hall of Audience and gardens of the Diggi Palace in the city centre, and celebrates excellence in Rajasthani, Indian and International writing.

In 2007, the festival featured Salman Rushdie, Kiran Desai, Suketu Mehta, Shashi Despande, and William Dalrymple. In 2008, the following authors attended: Ian McEwan, Donna Tartt, John Berendt, Paul Zacharia, Indra Sinha, Uday Prakash, Christopher Hampton, Manil Suri, Miranda Seymour, Sonia Faleiro, Kunal Basu, Kamila Shamsie, Nayantara Saghal, Sarnath Banerjee, Jeet Thayil, Robin Roberston, Tishani Doshi among others.

Performance and music featured highly on the festival agenda. Paban Das Baul, Susheela Raman, Karsh Kale and Anoushka Shankar performed.

The 2009 festival runs from from 21 - 25 of January. The list of authors who have confirmed their presence at what is now seen to be Asia's foremost literary event includes Vikram Seth, Pico Iyer, Michael Ondaatje, Simon Schama, Tina Brown, Hanif Kureshi, Hari Kunzru, Pankaj Mishra, Tariq Ali, Ahmed Rashid, Patrick French, Mohsin Hamid, Mohammed Hanif, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Tarun Tejpal, Sashi Tharoor, U R Ananthmurthy, Alka Saraogi, Anuragh Mathur, Ashok Vajpayi, Asish Nandy, Basharat Peer, Charles Nicoll, Christophe Jafferlot, Colin Thubron, Daniyal Mueenudin, Geetanjali Shree, Mukul Kesavan, Musharraf Ali Farooqui, Narayana Rao, Nikita Lalwani, Paul Zacharia, Pavan K Varma, Rana Dasgupta, S R Faruqui, Tariq Ali, Tash Aw, Udayan Vajpayi, Farah Khan and Sonia Faleiro, while music will be provided by DJ Cheb i Sabbah, Nitin Sawney, and Paban Das Baul. The special theme this year is the oral tradition, in India and elsewhere.

The festival directors include the writers Namita Gokhale, Eleanor O’Keeffe, and William Dalrymple. The festival was founded by William Dalrymple and Faith Singh [cite news
url =http://www.hindu.com/fr/2006/01/20/stories/2006012002190400.htm
title =In the throes of joy
date = 2006-01-20
accessdate =2008-08-12
publisher =The Hindu] , originally as a segment of the Jaipur Virasat Festival in 2004, and developed into a free-standing festival of literature standing on its own feet in 2007 [cite web
url = http://www.kiwicollection.com/around_world_detail/ITEM=242/
title = Looking for something special? Try treasure hunting in India
accessdate = 2008-04-22
publisher = KiwiCollection.com] [cite news
url =http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=0640ff75-70ec-460d-8d06-a9bfc6d124aa
title =Writes of passage
date = 2008-01-30
accessdate =2008-04-23
publisher =Hindustan Times] in addition to regional director Vinod Joshi. It is an initiative of Jaipur Virasat Foundation and is produced by Sanjoy Roy of Teamwork Productions.

All events at the festival are free and not ticketed.

References

* [http://www.jaipurliteraturefestival.org/ Jaipur Literature Festival official website]
* [http://www.jaipurfestival.org/ Jaipur Literature Festival Website]