PhotoStory: 220,000 Attend Seventh ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival

Newsblaze South Asia Photojournalist Sumit Thaaran attended the five day festival in Jaipur capturing some interesting moments for our readers.

The seventh ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, the world’s largest free literary festival, witnessed a record number of visits this year, with total count close to 220,000.

The Festival, which was entirely free to the public, put on 14,700 hot meals and booked 1,800 nights in Jaipur hotels for the 240 authors, including Amartya Sen, Jonathan Franzen, Jhumpa Lahiri, Gloria Steinem, Ashok Vajpeyi, SR Faruqi, Ved Mehta, Reza Aslan, Samantha Shannon, Ganesh Devy, MT Vasudevan, Nair Mahesh Dattani and Narendra Kohli.

The Festival closed on Tuesday with a rousing debate in favour of democracy and freedom of expression. Often controversial, the festival ended with no major incidents, although on Monday, one group protesting against a TV serial they say portrayed their culture in a bad light, were ejected by police.

Sumit Tharan
Sumit Tharan is a photojournalist based in New Delhi, India, who travels all over India to compile photo essays.