Jaipur Literature Festival

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The Jaipur Literature Festival is an annual literary festival taking place in the pink city of Jaipur. It is considered to be Asia’s leading literature event. It is a celebration of national and international writers and encompasses a range of activities including film, music and theatre. 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. It brings together writers and artists from across continents, cultures, forms and genres. The festival seeks to realign the focus from Indian writing in English towards India's diverse regional-language based literary traditions and give writers in these languages access to larger audiences. The USP of the festival is that it is accessible to the general public at no cost.

History

The Festival is an Initiative of the Jaipur Virasat Foundation, an NGO that works with Rajasthan’s musicians and craftspeople to preserve skills and promote economic livelihoods while protecting heritage. It is founded by Faith Singh, originally as a segment of the Jaipur Heritage International Festival in 2006, and developed into a free-standing festival of literature standing on its own feet in 2008. JVF's Community Director Vinod Joshi is its regional advisor. The Jaipur Heritage International Festival is an initiative of the Jaipur Virasat Foundation. All events at the festival are free and not ticketed.

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.

Events

• The festival programme includes readings, talks, literary lunches, debates, performances, children’s workshops and interactive activities.

• Famous luminaries from the world of literature honour this festival with their presence. They organise oratory sessions with the audiences.

• Debates on politics, society and other important issues are also held. Theatre, films and music events are also organised on this day.

• Authors and readers mix freely and anybody can go up to an author and start a conversation about books.

• It also attracts accredited press from across the world, delegations from all over the world and book lovers from across Asia and abroad.

Holiday Status - It is not a Holiday.