Cover Designs
The Big Fat Indian Litfest is back, for the fifth year in a row. This year’s Jaipur Literature Festival (Jan 21-25) is even bigger (over 150 writers) and with a fatter budget (Rs 2.4 crores) than last year. Why it continues to be such an eagerly awaited literary event—Asia’s leading litfest, say the directors—while others collapse soon after ambitious births, is a mystery. Is it the venue—the intimately exotic Diggy Palace hotel in Jaipur—or the skills of the two directors, William Dalrymple and Namita Gokhale. Or the audience (over 40,000 are expected to attend)? Or the fact that it’s free for all to come and listen to the newest and best in the bookworld?
Cast In A Pen
While the list of invitees from abroad is unprecedented in its variety and prestige—Nobel
laureate Wole Soyinka, Booker winners Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright, five Pultizer winners...—the usual IWE star cast is missing. Aravind Adiga turned down the litfest’s invitation last year, so they didn’t bother chasing him this time. Amitav Ghosh and Amartya Sen have declined, leaving Pankaj Mishra and Vikram Chandra to hold up the IWE end, while the bhasha side boasts Girish Karnad, Mahashweta Devi, Krishna Sobti and Indira Goswami—and Chetan Bhagat, on whichever side you’d put him.
Beautiful Noise
The title of the litfest’s official blurber should go to celebrity writer/editor Tina Brown. Last year she called it “the greatest literary show on earth” in her Daily Beast website. This week, she told Sunday Times that it gets the world’s best writers and how much she’s looking forward to it.
