Jaipur Literature Festival: Timings, Dates & Major Attractions
Dubbed as the greatest Literary Show on Earth scheduled from 23rd to 27th January 2020, and expecting around 300 speakers and several prominent writers and non-writer dignitaries, the Jaipur Literature Festival is fondly called ‘Kumbh of Literature.’ The annual event aims to bring and bind the littérateurs and literature enthusiasts from all over the world together.The festival showcases exemplary works of both literary genius and new enthusiasts. In the past decade, the Jaipur Literature Festival has seen a transformation, changing its global dynamics. It has hosted around 2,000 esteemed speakers and seen millions of book lovers from across the continents, sifting pages and lending ears to all the ideas and great speeches. Over the years, the forum has seen the festival stand up to its core values - to serve as a democratic, non-aligned platform offering free and fair access.
The festival provides a great platform for eminent writers, thinkers, business leaders, sportspersons, humanitarians, politicians, and entertainers from the world over on one ground to express and exchange thoughts and ideas and engage in progressive debates and dialogues. It is a sight to behold. The elegant Diggi Palace Hotel in the heart of the Jaipur city beams with the Nobel Laureates, Man Booker prize awardees to debutant novelists and local writers engaging in book readings and debates, discussions and stimulating conversations in its Hall of Audience and the beautifully manicured gardens. The fest has kept up its ante’ and promises to keep doing so.
Origin and development of Jaipur Festival
Founded in 2006, the five-day program happens in January every year in the heritage city of Jaipur amidst Rajasthani folk artists, food, and tourism. Writers Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple are the festival directors and it is produced by Teamwork Arts Sanjoy Roy. Teamwork Arts has been producing 25 other best in the business performing arts, literary fests, and visual arts in more than 40 cities across the world.Founder sponsor and advisor Surina Narula has been associated with the festival since its inception. JVF the Jaipur Virasat Foundation founded by Faith Singh initiated the festival originally as a branch of Jaipur Heritage International Festival in 2006. The festival later found its feet in 2008 and since then has been an independent fest. The festival is developed to be a fundraiser event. It is completely free of charge and is not ticketed.
The other stakeholders like publishers, translators, writers, literary agents, booksellers, and other related businesses find it a good marketplace to connect, showcase their work, discuss ideas and generally ‘talk business’.
Eminence in presence:
The fest has hosted speakers of the stature of Nobel Laureates J.M. Coetzee, Wole Soyinka, Orhan Pamuk, Man Booker awardees Paul Beatty, Margaret Atwood, and Ian McEwan, India’s highest literary honor Sahitya Academy winners, Late Girish Karnard, Mahashweta Devi and U.R. Ananthamurthy and others like Gulzar, Javed Akhtar, Salman Rushdie, M.T Vasudevan Nair – some of the eminent literateurs. The fest has also seen the celebrated writers like Amish Tripathi, V.S. Naipaul, Shobhaa De, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Hari Kunzru, Prasoon Joshi, and Vikram Seth and many more.Stepping beyond literature, the festival did not limit itself and took the chance to host Late Indian president APJ Abdul Kalam, Amitabh Bachchan, Amartya Sen, Usha Uthup, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Stephen Fry, Mitali Raj (Indian women cricket team captain), Oprah Winfrey, and Thomas Piketty.
Engaging youth and students:
The fest also offers a platform to budding literary artists. It hosts many competitions and extension events to encourage them and provide international media attention to grab hold of. The ongoing Youth Outreach Program in association with Yuva Ekta Foundation and School Outreach program with Pratham Books involves the young and the students to catch them young.Jaipur BookMark also engages with aspiring writers through iWrite, where they can share their works with stalwarts of the industry and the deserving get to publish their work and get enrolled in First Book Club and other Mentorship programs for the recently initiated.
Competitions:
• Youth Outreach: The announcements are anticipated any time soon.
• Blogging Contest: Recently started the Jaipur Literature Festival Blogging Competition was a hit last year and is back this year too. Bloggers are invited to write and send a blog, which if selected stands a chance to be published on the Jaipur Literature Festival blog page.
• Essay Writing Contest: The participants are encouraged to write essays on the given topics and the winners are selected. This years’ contest is yet to be announced.Extracurricular activities, literally!
The fest is not confined to Diggi Palace Hotel but happens across many venues. Hotel Clarks Amer partners to host the Jaipur Music Stage with established singers rendition-ing their best compositions.Events like live public art demonstrations and Festival Bazaars are organized to empower the artisans and craftsmen, weavers and other artistic talents. This also proves to be a good ground for entrepreneurs in the field of art/handicraft industry, craft clusters by exposing the business to a large customer base.
This year three markets venues have been identified:
1. The main festival Bazaar at Diggi Palace: Stall bookings are open to all interested designers, artisans, weavers, and craftspeople. The stalls will be open from 9 am to 7 pm on all 5 days of the festival.
2. Pool Bazar: Features subsidized space and reserved for NGO’s craft collectives and other craft-related development and sustainable solutions. 9 am to 7 pm on all 5 days of the festival.
3. Night Market: designated at Clarks Amer during the Jaipur Music Stage event. The market will operate from 7 pm to 10 pm for 3 days of the festival.