Hamid Karzai, Anurag Kashyap, Sudha Murty and Muhammad Yunus to be a part of Jaipur Lit Fest

Namita Gokhale, writer, publisher and co-director of the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, says, “The coming year (2018) is a vintage year with an amazing line up of international and Indian writers and multiple strands of thoughtfully curated sessions. A space to interrogate our changing times and to encounter poetry and the dreaming mind, the Festival returns with its unique brand of magic, whimsy and intellectual rigour.” 

Every year, Jaipur Lit Fest brings together a diverse mix of the world’s greatest writers, thinkers, humanitarians, politicians, business leaders, sports people and entertainers at one venue to champion the freedom to express and engage in thoughtful debate and dialogue. Lending an insight into the upcoming festival, William Dalrymple, writer, historian and co-director of the festival, says, “2018 may be the best Jaipur ever, fielding an unrivaled literary ‘First Eleven’ made up of star poets and acclaimed novelists, historians and biographers, thinkers and dreamers and scribblers and critics, genii and half the faculty of Harvard. It’s an astonishing line up and I can't wait for the 25th of January to see it all become a reality.”

Knowing the curiosity among the book lovers with regard to the festival, the directors have announced its first list of 60 speakers out of over 250 expected to attend the 2018 edition. This year, the festival will welcome over 250 writers, thinkers, politicians, journalists and popular cultural icons from over 35 different nationalities. It will feature a line-up of speakers representing the major awards including the Nobel, Man Booker, Pulitzer, Padma Vibhushan and the Sahitya Akademi Award.  Noted personalities like Akhil Sharma, Amy Tan, Anurag Kashyap, B N Goswamy, Hamid Karzai, Helen Fielding, Michael Ondaatje, Michael Rezendes, Mridula Garg, Muhammad Yunus, Pico Iyer, Rupi Kaur, Sonal Mansingh, Sudha Murty, Tom Stoppard and Zakir Hussain, among others, will join the event.

Sanjoy K. Roy, the producer of the festival said, “As we wait to celebrate yet another milestone year of the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2018, we look forward to the infectious energy of intellectual debate and the dynamism that charges the Festival's atmosphere that comes from a mingling of celebrated minds, diverse perspectives, and heightened cultural experiences. What is heartening is that this incredible global phenomenon that the Festival has evolved into is still deeply rooted in its core identity as a completely accessible and democratic platform.”