Jaipur Literature Festival, one of the biggest literary festivals in the world, has been postponed to March 5 due to the surge in Covid19 cases throughout India. It was earlier scheduled to be held from January 28 to February 6 as an on-ground program as well as online program. But because of the current Covid situation, the organisers have decided to hold it from March 5 to 14, the same as a hybrid mode,from March 5 to 14 the virtual event and from March 10 to 14 the in-person event. About 250 authors, thinkers, politicians and popular culture icons across the world are expected to participate in the festival.
Teamwork Arts
In a statement, Teamwork Arts, the producer of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), said that it has “rescheduled the 15th edition of the Festival today. Previously scheduled for the end of January, the festival has now been rescheduled” to March 2022.
They also said, “festival will follow all Covid-19 protocols that will be mandated by the central and Rajasthan governments during the time of its rescheduled dates.”
Sanjoy K. Roy, Managing Director of Teamwork Arts, said, “Keeping in mind the advent of the new variant and the sharp rise in the number of cases across the country, we have thought it best to reschedule the Festival and hold it in March 2022. We remain committed to bring the Festival back to Jaipur as an on-ground, immersive experience, promoting dialogue, discussion and debate on books and ideas.”
Teamwork Arts further said that the festival will be in “a hybrid avatar with both its on-ground magnificence as well as its nifty virtual presence. The hybrid version will enable a larger audience to access the Festival offerings, reaching out to book-lovers across continents.”
Registration
Registration and access to the online edition of the festival is free and open to all. So, all book lovers and bidding writers from Sri Lanka can also participate in the virtual literary discussions after registering through its official website: jaipurliteraturefestival.org/speakers. And if one intends to register for the on-ground edition, he has to pay INR 200 per day for the registration.
Among the exceptions of this year’s festival, it will be hosted at Hotel Clarks Amer in Jaipur and not the iconic Diggi Palace, which housed the event for the last 12 years. At a curtain raiser event held in December 2021, the organisers of JLF 2022 revealed the speakers of the edition. Accordingly, they will host over 250 speakers, writers, thinkers, politicians, journalists and popular cultural icons from across a vast array of nationalities, representing 21 Indian and international languages.
Participants
“This year’s Nobel Prize winner, Abdurazak Gurnah, will join this year’s Booker Prize winner, Damon Galgut, and this year Baillie Gifford non-fiction awardee, Patrick Radden Keefe, along with Dolman winner, Taran Khan.
Colm Toibin, Jonathan Franzen, Shehan Karunatilaka, Lisa Taddeo, Nadifa Mohammad, Tahmima Anam, Elif Shafak, DBC Pierre and Monica Ali will complete our First XI of global greats of fiction,” said writer, historian and co-director of JLF William Dalrymple.
We all know Shehan Karunatilaka, a Sri Lankan novelist who became world famous after his debut novel Chinaman. So, his participation at the grand panel is an honour for Sri Lanka too.
Anyway, among other notable speakers at JLF 2020 include Arundhathi Subramaniam, Ambarish Satwik, B.N. Goswamy, Bruno Maçães, Cat Jarman, Damon Galgut, DBC Pierre, Farrukh Dhondy, Jonathan Franzen, Kunal Basu, Shashi Tharoor and Tripurdaman Singh. The full list of the speakers is available on the official website.
Covid regulations
Sanjoy Roy, managing director of Teamwork Arts and producer of JLF, also brought about his views at the curtain raising event. Following are a few of his thoughts:
“We will follow all Covid regulations that are issued from time to time. As of now, the festival has an online and on-ground version with adequate capacity, space and we will contain the number of attendees. Those wishing to attend the on-ground event have to register and pay a token amount to ensure their entrance, plus they need to either show their double vaccination certificate or a valid RT-PCR test. Masks will also be mandatory. We will do random RT-PCR testing during the course of the festival.”
“We have a slew of sessions for the online programme which will be exclusive to it. Given the continued travel disruption, this has given us the opportunity to programme our international speakers both on the ground and online.”
Future objectives
Meanwhile, the organisers of the JLF are now planning to take the festival across the country. Accordingly, the first overseas festival is to be held in Maldives for the first time. Soneva in Maldives is partnering with Teamwork Arts, producer of the festival, to bring JLF to Soneva Fushi. As Indian media says, JLF Soneva Fushi will be a literary destination for 10 days, from May 13- 22, and through it they intend to form a perfect backdrop to an international line-up of authors and fascinating workshops in the Maldives.
The Jaipur Literature fest will again reverberate with intense discussions among people from all walks of life. As it is also an online festival, we can join it and enjoy the literary discussions, book readings and other programs by world’s great writers from our own homes which might be an exceptional experience.
