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~ Posted by Emma Hogan, March 6th 2012  read more »

Held at the Diggi Palace in India’s Pink City, the Jaipur Literature Festival is hugely popular, not least because it’s free: in 2010 it drew an estimated 30,000 people, a third of them from overseas. Led by the travel writer William Dalrymple and the novelist-publisher Namita Gokhale, it lays on a spicy variety of speakers, including Richard Ford, J.M. Coetzee, Mohsin Hamid, Kiran Desai, Kamila Shamsie, Jung Chang, Martin Amis and Orhan Pamuk.

Jaipur, Dalrymple says, “really is a festival. The buildings are festooned with streamers, thousands of people mill around, we let off fireworks at night, and after 6.30 the writers have to shut up and give over to music and dancing.” 

~ ANTHONY GARDNER

DSC Jaipur Literature Festival  January 21st to 25th 
 

Picture Credit: lamoney (via Flickr)

The worry for speakers at Festivaletteratura is being upstaged by long-dead architects. Mantua is breathtaking, and a number of private palazzi and gardens are opened up for the festival. But it’s a friendly affair, energised by hundreds of student volunteers. The bill mixes Italian authors with imports, including Edmund White, John Berger, Amos Oz and Zadie Smith.

Top of the bill are two warhorses: Seamus Heaney and V.S. Naipaul. Heaney, radiating benevolence, can be relied upon to read his work beautifully; Naipaul is an organiser’s nightmare (he has been known to fax through a list of preferred wines), and will either dazzle his audience or annihilate it with grumpy put-downs. The final day is devoted to discussion of a single book, with copies handed out free: this time it’s “White Fang” by Jack London.

Festivaletteratura Mantua September 8th to 12th

~ ANTHONY GARDNER