THE LITERARY EXTRAVAGANZA 

The Jaipur Literature Festival 2024 is all set to begin. Scheduled to run from February 1st to 5th at Hotel Clarks Amer, the grand literary extravaganza will see over 550 writers, speakers, and performers, and will represent 16 Indian and 8 international languages. The Indian languages include Assamese, Awadhi, Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Kurukh, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Tamil, Toda, Urdu, and the Banjara language – Lamani (Lambada).

A diverse array of speakers

The Festival presents an extraordinary array of literary figures this season. Among them are Aarathi Prasad, National Geographic’s Regional Manager for Europe and Western Asia, celebrated for her work Silk: A History in Three Metamorphoses. Former Indian cricketer and commentator Ajay Jadeja will also grace the event, alongside Anand Neelakantan, renowned for his Bahubali trilogy and Asura: Tale of the Vanquished. Anjan Sundaram, the award-winning author of Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship, and Ben Macintyre, known for bestselling titles like Operation Mincemeat and SAS: Rogue Heroes, will share their insights.

Moreover, attendees can anticipate engaging discussions with Bonnie Garmus, a talented novelist and creative director, Gulzar, well known poet and scriptwriter and Georgi Gospodinov, recipient of the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature. Gopal Krishna Gandhi, former Governor of West Bengal and author of I Am an Ordinary Man: India’s Struggle for Freedom (1914–1948), will offer his perspective. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hernan Diaz will join the lineup, as will Jonathan Freedland, the Orwell Prize-winning journalist known for The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World. Katherine Rundell, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize, and Katie Kitamura, acclaimed for her recent novel Intimacies, will also enrich the Festival with their presence. Nicholas Shakespeare, a prize-winning British novelist and biographer of Ian Fleming, along with Sital Kalantry, a distinguished law professor and writer of Court on Trial, and Sonora Jha, professor of journalism and author of The Laughter and Foreign, complete this illustrious gathering of literary talents.

Gulzar

Sustainable festival

This year the festival has an endeavour towards a zero-waste and more sustainable Festival through a series of initiatives and partnerships, including Earth Day. The Festival will also aim to move towards a more carbon-neutral upcoming edition with its green partners.

 
Jaipur Music Stage (JMS)

The JMS will present a diverse array of artists from the Indian subcontinent, offering a rich tapestry of musical genres that reflect a fusion of style, sound, and history.

Acclaimed singer, songwriter, and poet Alif (Mohammad Muneem) will be performing on the first evening. He is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival Award for the single Lalnawat, IRAA Award for the single Like a Sufi, and the IIMA Award for ‘Best Folk Song’ – Ride Home.  The evening will also feature The Tapi Project, comprising Yogendra Saniyawala (acoustic & bass guitar, lyrics, composition), Swati Minaxi (voice), Gaurav Kapadia (drums) and Biju Nambiar (keyboards, bass and drums). The band experiments with intricate genres in music like folk, trip-hop, jazz, and ambient textures and uses folk instruments as an essential part of their band.

The second evening of JMS will feature Prabh Deep, a Delhi-based multi-faceted artist, who has evolved into one of the region’s brightest visionaries, making his mark as one of the best storytellers in the game today. The second evening will also feature a performance by The Revisit Project, a group which unravels the complexity and rigour of jazz with a distinctive and characteristic twist. Their music combines a solid groove, old-school funk, and rhythmic jazz while offering pointed observations about life, love, and politics in India.

The Revisit Project

The final evening will witness an incredible set featuring renowned singer-songwriters Harpreet and Salman Elahi. Harpreet is a versatile artiste who sings original musical compositions in Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Assamese, Rajasthani and Haryanvi. He is best known for creating musical scores to epic works of humanist poets like Kabir and Bulleh Shah. Mumbai-based musician Salman Elahi’s soothing voice has captured the hearts of over 20 million people worldwide with his popular song Pahadon Mein. Writing and singing primarily in Urdu/Hindi, Elahi believes in using his music to express his thoughts about life and self-discovery. The evening will also showcase India’s ever-evolving band When Chai Met Toast (WCMT). The band consists of vocalist Ashwin Gopakumar, guitarist Achyuth Jaigopal, keyboard player Palee Francis and drummer Pai Sailesh. 

When Chai Met Toast

Jaipur BookMark

The Jaipur BookMark (JBM) unfolds alongside the Festival, spanning five days this year and hosting a diverse lineup of sessions featuring prominent figures from the publishing world. These sessions cover a wide array of topics, including the exploration of Indian literature across languages and scripts, the representation of diverse sexualities in regional language publishing, and the commemoration of DC Books’ 50-year journey. Additionally, discussions delve into multilingual publishing in the Global South, the evolving dynamics of book marketing in the age of social media, fostering early readers through picture books, and grappling with challenges such as taxation and piracy in the publishing industry.

Highlighted sessions at JBM encompass a broad range of themes, from engaging dialogues on the evolution of Indian literature to discussions on the representation of diverse sexualities in regional language publishing. Moreover, sessions celebrate milestones like DC Books’ 50th anniversary and explore pressing issues such as multilingual publishing in the Global South, the transformation of book marketing strategies in the digital era, nurturing young readers through illustrated books, and addressing challenges like taxation and piracy in the publishing landscape.