© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
If beginning your year without immersing yourself in good literature sounds a little “meh”, the iconic Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) is here once again to help you get out of winter chills and boredom. As William Dalrymple, historian and co-director of the festival, says in a press release, “Every year we try and raise the bar at the JLF, but 2024 will be our finest festival yet. We are proud to present almost all the year’s most celebrated writers from around the world…”
The 17th edition of the festival will be held from February 1 to 5 at Hotel Clarks Amer in the vibrant pink city of Jaipur. One day’s ticket costs Rs 200.
More than 250 writers and scholars from around the world will speak at the festival, including Amish Tripathi, Anant Goenka, B Jeyamohan, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Daisy Rockwell, Damon Galgut, Devdutt Pattanaik, Gulzar, Hernan Diaz, Katherine Rundell, Madan B Lokur, Marcus du Sautoy, Mary Beard, Mridula Garg, Neerja Chowdhury, Raghuram Rajan, Raj Kamal Jha, Rana Safvi, S Muralidhar, Shashi Tharoor, Shivshankar Menon, Shubhra Gupta, Simon Schama, Sudha Murthy, Suhasini Haidar, Swapna Liddle, SY Quraishi, Vishnu Som, and Vivek Shanbhag.
Namita Gokhale, writer and co-director of the festival, says in the release, “[This festival] is our commitment to showcasing Indian languages and writers and platform voices that represent the rich diversity of Indian literary traditions…” Fiction, non-fiction, history, politics, current affairs, gender, science, medicine, environment, climate justice, geopolitics, food and cinema will be only some of the topics discussed at the festival.
The renowned Jaipur BookMark, one of South Asia’s biggest publishing conclaves, will return to the festival with its eleventh edition. The focus will be on emerging trends — Artificial Intelligence, podcasts, micro-audio content, Indian language publishing platforms, OTT and publishing, and self-publishing. It will also include discussions on retail, marketing, and the ecosystem of translation.
The Jaipur Music Stage will run parallel to the festival, hosting incredible musical performances in the evenings. Singer-songwriter Alif (Mohammad Muneem), and bands like The Tapi Project, The Revisit Project, and When Chai Met Toast are some of the performers this year.
