Book Box | Why you should go to JLF
Travel to the Jaipur Literature Festival to understand our times, everything from AI and art to ancient wisdom
Once a year, put everything else in your life aside and travel to Jaipur. Wake up to books and spend all day with them.
Go to JLF to listen to the writers you love like Javed Akhtar and V.V Ganeshananthan. Hear them talk about their process of creation, and why books can change the world.
Go to JLF to discover new authors. Hear Anna Funder talk about the life of the wife of George Orwell, about the startling discoveries she made in the writing of her book Wifedom. Listen to Polish murder mystery writer Zygmunt Miloszewski and French writer Phillipe Claudel on how murder mysteries are mirrors to the fractures in society, on how whodunits can be surgeons who go past the surface, enter the body of society, find out what’s wrong and hold it up to scrutiny.
Go to JLF to learn about the world. Understand the language of flowers from Justice R. S Chauhan, of plants from English botanist Angela Paine, and trees from Dr S Natesh. Dive into the deep oceans with James Bradley and Philip Green. Learn about minerals from Philip Marsden and Dalit Kitchens from Shahu Patole.
Go to JLF because it is a masterclass in communication. Listen to naturalist Yuvan Aves tell his story, and soak in poetry readings by Ranjit Hoskote, Sudeep Sen and Priya Malik. Witness Sanjoy Roy draws fascinating insights from a panel full of museum directors from around the world. Hear publisher Chiki Sarkar, journalist Nandini Nair and writer Mridula Koshy ask the perfect questions of their interviewees. Watch William Dalrymple’s sublime skill in storytelling. JLF is a crash course in the art of connecting through words.
Go to JLF for all this razzmatazz and more – for the sounds of drum beats, for the morning ragas, for the evening music, the jazz, the Sufi songs, for the art that adorns the corridors that connect the venues, to browse and buy in the little shops that have jewellery, journals and ethnic bric-a-brac.
Go to JLF to buy bags full of books. Visit the festival bookstore and browse through its special collection. Get your books signed. What a thrill to fill your bookshelves with personally autographed copies.
Go to JLF to observe who is missing - the rebels, the lesser-known authors without literary backers, and those kept away by geopolitics. This five-day festival brings in countless voices but also leaves some out.
Go to JLF for the thrill of being in step with the world's greatest thinkers. Sit at the next table to Nobel prize-winning biologist Venki Ramakrishnan. Stand at a chai stall right beside International Booker prize winner Jenny Erpenbeck, author of Kairos and her translator the German poet Michael Hoffman. Surround yourself with literary luminaries—six Nobel Prize winners, eleven Pulitzer winners, Sahitya Akademi winners and countless other awardees.
Art on the connecting corridors
Go to JLF to be in the company of people who love books. Talk to Nivedita, a professor of sociology who lives in Berlin and travels every year to Jaipur. Have breakfast with Debi and Jaideep who are here from Singapore for the fest. Talk about book festivals with Daphne, the operating director of a literary festival in Scotland. Meet Swaati and her friends, writers who met in an online class and are now in Jaipur on a literary retreat. Eat kachoris with tamarind and mint chutneys at the food court with three young management consultants from Accenture, BCG and American Express. They’ve taken a day off work and come to Jaipur for a long literary weekend.
Go to JLF for the gossip - hear Tina Brown on the Meghan Markle-Kate Middleton rivalry and Christopher de Bellaigue on the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman and his quarrelling concubines.
Go to JLF to see the bigger picture. Listen to Jon Vaillant talk about climate change and forest fires in Fire Weather. Hear Anuja Chandramouli retell the love story of the ancient Tamil epic Silapathikaram. Soak in the big ideas. Investigate our times, everything from history, philosophy, ancient scriptures, art and artificial intelligence to the future of humankind.
Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or suggestions, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com
The views expressed are personal
Recommended Topics