The annual countdown to the world’s largest free literary festival officially began on Wednesday as the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival brought its infectious energy and unrivalled magic to the Indian capital in New Delhi.
At a highly-anticipated event packed with publishers, authors, media and the in New Delhi, co-Directors William Dalrymple and Namita Gokhale revealed the final line-up of authors, themes and sponsors that will participate in the annual carnival of the mind between 21-25 January 2015.
Namita Gokhale, author and co-Director, while speaking at the function said, “The ZEE Jaipur Literature festival in its many avatars has been described variously as a literary Woodstock, a Sahityik Kumbh Mela, and a spreading Banyan tree, a Bargad Ka Ped with both aerial and earth roots. The last metaphor is particularly apt, keeping in mind the perhaps seventy book festivals that have taken root across South Asia, celebrating regional languages and writing, connecting with international writers, being both local and global, rooted and cosmopolitan. I am proud and delighted to bring all these writers together for our annual celebration of books and ideas, and look forward to welcoming our guests from across the globe.”
William Dalrymple, author and co-Director said that this year’s programme will achieve this better than ever and it looks like a particularly vintage year.
“We have two missions at Jaipur: to showcase Indian writing to the world and to bring the greatest writers in the world to India. We have sessions on writing criticism, art history, historical novels and memoir; we’ll take a fresh look at Homer and Marie Antoinette, detectives and spooks, aesthetics and erotics and everything in between. It’s going to be an utterly amazing few days.”
This year, 234 speakers will participate in the Festival, and a further 117 musicians, speakers and artists, will take the number of Festival participants to 351.