The Jaipur Literature Festival, or JLF, is an annual literary festival which takes place in the Indian city of Jaipur each year in the month of January. It was founded in 2006. It is the world's largest free literary festival. The Diggi Palace Hotel serves as the main venue of the festival, with sessions held in the Hall of Audience and throughout the gardens of the Diggi Palace in the city centre. The festival directors are the writers

Namita Gokhale Namita Gokhale (born 1956) is an Indian writer, editor, festival director, and publisher. Her debut novel, ''Paro: Dreams of Passion'' was released in 1984, and she has since written fiction and nonfiction, and edited nonfiction collections. She ...

and William Dalrymple and is produced by Sanjoy Roy of Teamwork Arts. Surina Narula is the Founder Sponsor and Festival Advisor for the literature festival. The Festival is an Initiative of the Jaipur Virasat Foundation (JVF) founded by Faith Singh, originally as a segment of the Jaipur Heritage International Festival in 2006, and developed into a free-standing festival of literature standing on its own feet in 2008. JVF's Community Director Vinod Joshi is its regional advisor. All events at the festival are free and not ticketed. In 2012, a number of events occurred related to the Salman Rushdie and the ''Satanic Verses'' controversy. A number of events created by the organisers of JLF, loosely named JLF International, have taken place in other cities around the world.

History, timeline

2006

The 2006 inaugural Jaipur Literature Festival featured 18 writers, including Hari Kunzru, William Dalrymple, Shobhaa De and

and 14 others. It drew a crowd of about 100 attendees, some of whom "appeared to be tourists who had simply got lost", according to the event's co-director William Dalrymple.

2007

In 2007 the festival grew in size and featured Salman Rushdie, Kiran Desai,

Suketu Mehta Suketu Mehta is the New York-based author of ''Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found'', which won the Kiriyama Prize and the Hutch Crossword Award, and was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize, the Lettre Ulysses Prize, the BBC4 Samuel Johnson Pri ...

, Shashi Deshpande, and William Dalrymple.

2008

In 2008 the festival continued to expand with about 2,500 attendees and the following authors/speakers: Ian McEwan, Donna Tartt, John Berendt, Paul Zacharia, Indra Sinha,

Uday Prakash Uday Prakash (born 1 January 1952) is a Hindi poet, scholar, journalist, translator and short story writer from India. He has worked as administrator, editor, researcher, and TV director. He writes for major dailies and periodicals as a freelance ...

Christopher Hampton Sir Christopher James Hampton ( Horta, Azores, 26 January 1946) is a British playwright, screenwriter, translator and film director. He is best known for his play ''Les Liaisons Dangereuses'' based on the novel of the same name and the film ...

Manil Suri Manil Suri (born July 1959) is an Indian-American mathematician and writer of a trilogy of novels all named for Hindu gods. His first novel, '' The Death of Vishnu'' (2001), which was long-listed for the 2001 Booker Prize, short-listed for th ...

Miranda Seymour Miranda Jane Seymour (born 8 August 1948) is an English literary critic, novelist and biographer. The lives she has described have included those of Robert Graves and Mary Shelley. Seymour, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, has in r ...

2009

The 2009 festival had about 12,000 attendees and over 140 authors/speakers including Vikram Seth, Pico Iyer, Michael Ondaatje, Simon Schama, Tina Brown,

Hanif Kureshi Hanif Kureishi (born 5 December 1954) is a British playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker and novelist of South Asian and English descent. In 2008, ''The Times'' included Kureishi in its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Early l ...

, Hari Kunzru, Pankaj Mishra, Tariq Ali, Ahmed Rashid,

Patrick French Patrick French (born 1966) is a British writer, historian and academician. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh where he studied English and American literature, and received a PhD in South Asian Studies. He was appointed as the inau ...

, Mohsin Hamid,

Mohammed Hanif Mohammed Hanif (born November 1964) is a British Pakistani writer and journalist who writes a monthly opinion piece in ''The New York Times.'' Hanif is the author of the critically acclaimed book ''A Case of Exploding Mangoes'', which was long ...

, Wendy Doniger,

Sunil Gangopadhyay Sunil Gangopadhyay or Sunil Ganguly (7 September 1934 – 23 October 2012) was an Indian poet, historian and novelist in the Bengali language based in the city of Kolkata. He is a former Sheriff of Calcutta. Gangopadhyay obtained his ma ...

, Tarun Tejpal, Sashi Tharoor, U R Ananthmurthy, Alka Saraogi, Anuragh Mathur,

Ashok Vajpeyi Ashok Vajpeyi ( hi, अशोक वाजपेयी; born 1941) is an Indian Hindi-language poet, essayist, literary-cultural critic, apart from being a noted cultural and arts administrator, and a former civil servant. He was chairman, Lali ...

, Ashis Nandy, Basharat Peer,

Charles Nicoll Charles Nicholl is an English author specializing in works of history, biography, literary detection, and travel. He has been active as a writer since the 1970s and has been publishing books since 1980. His subjects have included Christopher Marl ...

Christophe Jaffrelot Christophe Jaffrelot (born 12 February 1964) is a French political scientist and Indologist specialising in South Asia, particularly India and Pakistan. He is a professor of South Asian politics and history the ''Centre d'études et de recherches ...

, Colin Thubron,

Daniyal Mueenuddin Daniyal Mueenuddin ( ur, ) (born 1963) is a Pakistani-American author who writes in English. His short story collection '' In Other Rooms, Other Wonders'', has been translated into sixteen languages, and won The Story Prize, the Commonwealth Wri ...

, Geetanjali Shree,

Mukul Kesavan Mukul Kesavan (born 9 April 1957) is an Indian historian, novelist and political and social essayist. He was schooled at St. Xaviers' School in Delhi and then went on to study history at St. Stephen's College, and at the University of Delhi. He la ...

Musharraf Ali Farooqui Musharraf Ali Farooqi (born 26 July 1968) is a Pakistani-Canadian author, translator, and storyteller. Farooqi was among the five writers shortlisted for Asia's most prestigious literary prize in 2012. In addition to his fiction and translatio ...

, G. T. Narayana Rao,

Nikita Lalwani Nikita Lalwani FRSL is a novelist born in Kota, Rajasthan and raised in Cardiff, Wales. Her work has been translated into sixteen languages. She studied English at Bristol University. Her first book, ''Gifted'' (2007), was longlisted for th ...

, Paul Zacharia, Pavan K Varma,

Rana Dasgupta Rana Dasgupta (born 5 November 1971 in Canterbury, England) is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He grew up in Cambridge, England, and studied at Balliol College, Oxford, the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud in Aix-en-Provence, and, as a Fu ...

, S R Faruqui, Tash Aw, Udayan Vajpeyi, Farah Khan and

Sonia Faleiro Sonia Faleiro (born 1977) is an Indian writer and Journalist. Her first novel ''The Girl'' was published by Viking in 2006. This was followed by ''Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars'' (2010), and the e-single ''13 M ...

, with music provided by DJ Cheb i Sabbah,

Nitin Sawney Nitin Sawhney , D.Mus (; born 1964) is a British musician, producer and composer. A recipient of the Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement award in 2017, among multiple international awards throughout his career. Sawhney's work combines Asian and ...

, Salman Ahmad ( Junoon Unplugged), Shye Ben Tzur, Rajasthan Roots,

Paban Das Baul Paban Das Baul (born 1961) is a noted Baul singer and musician from India, who also plays a ''dubki'', a small tambourine and sometimes an ''ektara'' as an accompaniment. He is known for pioneering traditional Baul music on the international musi ...

and others in evening concerts over the five days. The special theme was the oral tradition, in India and elsewhere.

2010

The 2010 festival had about 30,000 attendeesAbout the Festival ’10
!--URL says 09' but goes to 10' page .. if changes, check http://jaipurliteraturefestival.org/archives for correct URL--> and 172 authors/speakers, including Geoff Dyer, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Jamaica Kincaid, Niall Ferguson, Vikram Chandra and

Hemant Shesh Hemant Shesh (born 28 December 1952) is an Indian Hindi writer, poet and civil servant. Biography Hemant Shesh completed his post graduate education in Sociology from the University of Rajasthan in Jaipur in 1977. He then joined the Rajasthan ...

2011

The 2011 festival had 226 writers like

, Prasoon Joshi, Javed Akhtar, Gulzar /speakers, including Nobel-winners J. M. Coetzee and Orhan Pamuk.

2012

The 2012 festival was held from 20 to 24 January, with the talk-show host

Oprah Winfrey Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', br ...

and author Salman Rushdie among the names announced in advance. Rushdie later cancelled, and indeed cancelled his complete tour of India, citing possible threats to his life as the primary reason. Rushdie investigated police reports that hitmen had been hired to

assassinate Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have a ...

him and implied that the police might have exaggerated the potential danger. Police said that Ruchir Joshi,

Jeet Thayil Jeet Thayil (born 1959) is an Indian poet, novelist, librettist and musician. He is the author of several poetry collections, including ''These Errors Are Correct'' (2008), which won the Sahitya Akademi Award. His first novel, '' Narcopolis,'' ( ...

, Hari Kunzru and

Amitava Kumar Amitava Kumar (born 17 March 1963) is an Indian writer and journalist who is Professor of English on the Helen D. Lockwood Chair at Vassar College. Early life Kumar was born in the city of Arrah in the Indian state of Bihar on 17 March 1963. He ...

fled Jaipur on the advice of officials at the Jaipur Literature Festival after reading excerpts from '' The Satanic Verses'', which is banned in India. Kunzru later wrote, "Our intention was not to offend anyone's religious sensibilities, but to give a voice to a writer who had been silenced by a death threat". A proposed video link session between Rushdie and the Jaipur Literature Festival ran into difficulty after the government pressured the festival to stop it. Rushdie expressed disappointment "on behalf of India", "an India in which religious extremists can prevent free expression of ideas at a literary festival, in which the politicians are too, let's say, in bed with those groups...for narrow electoral reasons, in which the police forces are unable to secure venues against demonstrators even when they know the demonstration is on its way". The Chairman of the Press Council of India and former judge of the Supreme Court

Markandey Katju Markandey Katju is an Indian jurist and former judge of Supreme Court of India who served as chairman for the Press Council of India. He is the son of politician Shiva Nath Katju and grandson of Kailash Nath Katju. He is the founder and patron ...

said that although he was "not in favour of religious obscurantism", he found Rushdie a "poor" and "substandard writer" and the focus on him detracting from more fundamental issues of "colonial inferiority complex" among educated Indians and what a literary mission could be about. Scottish novelist Allan Massie wrote, "The response to words should be words and words in the form of argument, not abuse". Peter Florence, Director, Hay Festivals, said the whole affair showed the importance of book festivals. On 28 January, Rushdie responded to Chetan Bhagat via Twitter after the popular writer taunted him and his work.

2015

The 2015 festival was scheduled from 21 to 25 January. Earlier that year it had been reported that the tentative list of speakers this season would number 181, including V. S. Naipaul, Chetan Bhagat and Amish Tripathi. The festival also expanded beyond the four walls of Diggi Palace, holding more than 300 events in 10 venues, including the Music Stage at Clarks Amer, the Jaipur BookMark at Narain Niwas, and two special sessions at Amer Fort and Hawa Mahal to focus on heritage and culture, supported by Rajasthan Tourism. Notable sessions of the festival in 2015 included two packed sessions each for Nobel Laureate Sir V. S. Naipaul and former President of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, who drew a 5,000-strong crowd to the Front Lawns of Diggi Palace.

2016

The Jaipur Lit Fest 2016 began at the Diggi Palace as scheduled, with Gair dance from Barmer, Rajasthan accompanied by a crowd that had been waiting since early morning. The Chief Minister, Vasundhara Raje, inaugurated the festival by lighting the ceremonial lamp, and reminisced about her childhood memories of reading books. In this year, the Jaipur Literature Festival entered into the '' Limca Book of Records''.

2017

Notable speakers at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2017 included writers Shashi Tharoor and

Nassim Nicholas Taleb Nassim Nicholas Taleb (; alternatively ''Nessim ''or'' Nissim''; born 12 September 1960) is a Lebanese-American essayist, mathematical statistician, former option trader, risk analyst, and aphorist whose work concerns problems of randomness, ...

2018

The 2018 Jaipur Literature Festival was organised from 25 to 29 January at the

Diggi Palace Diggi Palace is an Indian royal palace located in Jaipur, Rajasthan. It was converted into a heritage hotel, but a part is still occupied by the royal family, which also runs the hotel. The annual Jaipur Literature Festival has been held here si ...

in Jaipur. The biggest yet, the event saw participation from more than 380 people from across the world, who represented over 20 international and 15 Indian languages. The participants included authors, novelists, essayists, actors, politicians, musicians, lyricists, film directors, historians, scientists, broadcasters, businesspersons, poets, translators, marketers, journalists, publishers, playwrights, critics, academics, civil servants, dancers, therapists and activists. Among the prominent speakers at the 2018 edition were Helen Fielding, Hamid Karzai, Shashi Tharoor,

Anurag Kashyap Anurag Kashyap (born 10 September 1972) is an Indian filmmaker and actor known for his works in Hindi cinema. He is the recipient of several accolades, including four Filmfare Awards. For his contributions to film, the Government of France a ...

, Chetan Bhagat, Chitra Mudgal,

Kota Neelima Kota Neelima is an Indian politician, author, researcher, political commentator and artist. Her writing, art, and academic work include a focus on the themes of rural distress, gender, farmer suicides, and the peripheries of democratic societie ...

, Nayantara Sahgal, Prasoon Joshi, Rajdeep Sardesai,

Roly Keating Roland Francis Kester Keating (born 5 August 1961) is Chief Executive of the British Library. He took up his post in September 2012. Early life and education Keating was born on 5 August 1961 to Donald Norman Keating and Betty Katharine Keating ...

, Tom Stoppard,

Sagarika Ghose Sagarika Ghose (born 8 November 1964) is an Indian journalist, columnist and author. She has been a journalist since 1991 and has worked at ''The Times of India'', ''Outlook'' and ''The Indian Express''. She was a prime time anchor for BBC Wor ...

, Sharmila Tagore, Sheila Dikshit, Shobha De, Soha Ali Khan, Vinod Dua, Vir Sanghvi and Vishal Bhardwaj. Apart from lectures, book discussions, debates, book readings and book launches, the 2018 Jaipur Literature Festival also featured a music stage, headlined by Kailash Kher, and a theatrical dance performance at Hawa Mahal.

2019

The Jaipur literature festival 2019 was organised in royal

Diggi palace Diggi Palace is an Indian royal palace located in Jaipur, Rajasthan. It was converted into a heritage hotel, but a part is still occupied by the royal family, which also runs the hotel. The annual Jaipur Literature Festival has been held here si ...

Jaipur from 24 to 28 January 2019. Around 300 speakers were expected to visit Jaipur literature festival 2018–2019, including prominent writers such as Shobha de (known for her bold writing style), Anuradha Roy (Indian novelist, journalist), Chitra Banerjee (best known for her novel The palace of illusions). Some of the speakers including Manisha Koirala (Indian actress), Mithali raj (Indian women cricket team captain) would be the attraction of the festival who would talk about the journey and the challenges of their life. Here are few more names of Jaipur literature festival 2018–2019 are: # Jon Lee Anderson (American biographer, author investigative reporter) # Juergen Boos (CEO of the Frankfurt Book Fair) # Marc Quinn(British visual artist) # Markus Zusak (international bestselling author of ''The Book Thief'') # Molly Crabapple # N. S. Madhavan (Malayalam fiction-writer and columnist) # Narendra Kohli (dramatist and comedian) # NoViolet Bulawayo # Perumal Murugan (Tamil author and literary speaker) # Priyamvada Natarajan (astronomer and professor at Yale) # Andre Aciman (author, memoirist, professor, known for the novel ''Call Me By Your Name'')

2020

The Jaipur Literature Festival 2020 took place at the royal

from 23 to 27 January 2020. Around 300 speakers attended the Festival.

2021

The Jaipur Literature Festival 2021 took place Virtual edition from 19 to 28 February 2021. Around 200 speakers are scheduled to attend the Festival.

2022

The 2022 edition of the festival will take place between January 28 to February 1. The Festival will host over 250 speakers, writers, thinkers, politicians, journalists and popular cultural icons representing 21 Indian and international languages as well as major awards such as the

Nobel Nobel often refers to: *Nobel Prize, awarded annually since 1901, from the bequest of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel Nobel may also refer to: Companies *AkzoNobel, the result of the merger between Akzo and Nobel Industries in 1994 *Branobel, or ...

, the

Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a Literary award, literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United King ...

, the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

and the Sahitya Akademi Award. * For the first time, Diggi Palace will not be its primary venue. * For the first time, the festival will not be completely free. * Notable speakers include Nobel Prize winner, Abdurazak Gurnah,

winner,

Damon Galgut Damon Galgut (born 12 November 1963) is a South African novelist and playwright. He was awarded the 2021 Booker Prize for his novel '' The Promise'', having previously been shortlisted for the award in 2003 and 2010. Early life and education Ga ...

, Indian writers

Vikram Sampath Vikram Sampath is an Indian popular historian, noted for authoring biographies of Gauhar Jaan and V. D. Savarkar. Sampath was born in Karnataka. After academic training in engineering, mathematics, and finance, he worked in banking. In 2008, h ...

, Shashi Tharoor, Saket Suman and Gurmehar Kaur.

JLF International

Over the years, related events have also taken place at various times in:

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

;

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

;

Adelaide, Australia Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The demo ...

; the British Library in London (annually 2014–2019); and New York City. The November 2018 event in Adelaide was the first of an annual recurrence, known as JLF Adelaide and presented as part of the OzAsia Festival.