At the curtain-raiser of the 10th edition of Jaipur literature Festival, organisers announced the theme and the new batch of writers who will be attending. Jigyasu Joshi reports
The Jaipur litfest has grown so big that it will soon need to move out of the Diggi Palace. “We started with a few dozen visitors and the last edition saw 3.3 lakh people come to Jaipur to attend the festival. We have grown so big that in coming years we will have to move some of the less literary activities and panel discussions to another venue,” said William Dalrymple, co-founder of the Zee Jaipur literature Festival at the curtain raiser of the 10th edition at the Taj Mansingh on Tuesday. Celebrating the love for literature for a decade now, the festival brings together over 250 writers and nearly four lakh book-lovers.
The highly-anticipated curtain raiser was packed with publishers, authors and supporters of the festival, media and the literati. With the theme, The Freedom to Dream: India at 70, the event this year will see thinkers, politicians and popular culture icons focusing on world literature and driving conversations around modern India in the context of its history and future. Dalrymple attributed JlF’s success to co-founder Namita Gokhale’s knack for unearthing fascinating writers from the grassroots and his ability to bring writers with international standing to Jaipur. The author said, “This year will see a larger presence of poets, screenplay writers, historians and international journalists.”
Organisers announced ten writers who will be attending the event for the first time. Among the big names attending this edition are writers Margo Jefferson, Richard Flanagan, Alan Hollinghurst, Ha-Joon Chang, Dexter Filkins, Emma Sky and Sl Bhyrappa.
“I remember one man with his son was stopped from entering the festival because he was not well-dressed enough. When I intervened, the man explained that he sleeps on the footpath in front of the venue and knows that he won’t be able to afford his child’s education but if he can make his son attend such festivals, he might give him something more than text-book education. That was the day we decided to keep our efforts going till we reach out to every person in the country who loves literature,” shared JlF co-founder Sanjoy Roy. He added that JlF has been able to provide a platform for good literature and ensure access to all, irrespective of strata consciousness.
So how is JlF still different from other literature festivalsIJ “One thing that singles out JlF from all the other literature festivals in the world is that it is cashless. You don’t have to pay a penny to be a part. One can simply walk in and register their affection for literature. Moreover, no single writer is paid to attend. And people have the pick of authors and award winners from across the globe flocking to this festival.”
Other key themes at JlF will include the Constitution, the Magna Carta, Sanskrit literature, auto-biographies, music, new emerging Indian writers with the discussion on movements from marginal communities to the centre among other subjects. “This year the festival is more multi-vocal than it has ever been. We have about 30 languages represented here,” said Gokhale. She believes that in an increasingly parochial and polarised world, it is literature that helps people scale the walls. She also emphasised the importance of translations to access cultures that would otherwise be inaccessible and giving space to those who are marginalised by social, political and economic processes.
The curtain raiser themed, Bhakti: Resilience, Resistance and Resonance, was laced with musical performances accompanied by dramatic readings and translated renditions by writer and translator Arundhati Subramaniam, Kannada poet and playwright HS Shivaprakash and folk singer and storyteller Parvathy Baul.