Litfest in the Land of the Kings

RAJASTHAN translates as the “land of the kings” and the crown jewel is unmistakably the architectural marvel of the “pink city” of Jaipur cloaked from drinking well to palace dome in the dusty terracotta hue decreed by Maharaja Ram Singh in 1876 to welcome the bum-in-butter Prince of Wales who was later to be crowned King Edward VI.

- KIRU NAIDOO

WRITERS, poets and lovers of the written word from around the world gather for the Jaipur Literature Festival taking place until tomorrow in India.

(Kiru Naidoo)

Fast forward exactly 150 years later and the warren of beehive royal hides beckon a far more stellar breed of royalty in the waves of writers, poets and lovers of the written word who converge from every nook and cranny of the known world on the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Historian and Indophile William Dalrymple, who was among the founders of the litfest 19 years ago quipped: “These hundreds of thousands are a far cry from the handful we started with and the busload of Chinese tourists who boosted our numbers when their bus stopped at the wrong palace.”

The organisers expect between 300000 and a half a million people to walk through the lavishly decorated gates of the Clarkes Amer Hotel over the five days of the festival which ends tomorrow. It is likely the biggest book fair in the world exceeding the well-established London, Frankfurt and New York festivals.

Livewire host Sanjoy Roy heading the hosting entity, Teamworks, estimates that twenty million people from Spain to Mongolia tune into the festival’s online platforms. The real thrill however is rubbing shoulders with the Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and other luminaries of the literary world.

This year, the throne belonged to 2025 Booker Prize Winner, Banu Mushtaq, whose short story collection, Heart Lamp, was originally written in her native Kannada language. The book has since been translated into 35 languages.