Now that the Jaipur Literary Festival (JLF) in London is over, one needs a few days to reflect on what one learned from an intense weekend fizzing with ideas and discussions on a dizzying range of topics. ZEE JLF at the British Library in London has become a firm and welcomed fixture in the UK’s annual calendar. The literary festival, which originated in Jaipur a decade ago as a unique celebration of writing about South Asia, has extended its reach with international editions spread across destinations as diverse as Belfast, Houston, New York, Colorado, Toronto, and Adelaide. Lovers of words and literature are able to escape from the stresses of their daily lives to hear a host of famous authors talk about their books and exchange views on issues that matter to us all and analyze the significance and impact of historical events.
February 28, 2021
The virtual edition of the Lahore Literary Festival ’21, which concluded recently, had historians, fiction writers, poets,essayists, political analysts and artists come together “to unearth the past… in order to know the world better”
To judge from the way that people write about it, the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) remains as great a theatre as Richard Wagner’s operas. It is not only the writers who are to blame: the public has an insatiable appetite for stories, gossip, food, and entertainment, generally catered for at the Alhamra on the Mall. Yet, the collective view of literature festivals across the country has become an increasingly lazy stereotype.