ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival 2020 ends on a high note of camaraderie and hope

ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival 2020 attracted a total footfall of around 4,50,000 over the five days and hosted over 300 events and 500 speakers and performers from around 30 countries.

The 13th edition of the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, the world’s largest literary festival, accessible and open to all, was recently held from January 23-27, 2020 at the Diggi Palace Hotel, Jaipur, Rajasthan.The Festival announced a total footfall of around 4,50,000 over the last five days and hosted over 500 speakers and performers from around 30 countries including the United States of America, Israel, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Myanmar, China, Canada, Czech Republic, Mauritius, Nepal, Netherlands, Oman, Portugal, Ireland, France, Belgium, Spain, Norway, Sweden, United Arab Emirates and Nigeria.

The inaugural session of the iconic Festival’s 13th edition was graced by the Honourable Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Keynote Speakers Marcus du Sautoy and Shubha Mudgal along with Festival Directors and Producers.

Events galore…

Festival-goers from India and across the world witnessed around 300 events including sessions at the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, the Jaipur BookMark, the Jaipur Music Stage, A Majestic Evening at Amber Fort, Youth and School Outreach programmes among others. The Festival featured conversations, debates and dialogue spanning themes ranging from the investigative journalism, war, language, politics, environment and climate change, gender issues, business, science and technology, along with broader areas such as fiction, stagecraft, mythology, crime, history, cinema, art, travel and migration etc.

Behind the scenes…

Over 4000 people contributed to bringing the Festival together including a dedicated group of nearly 300 volunteers.

Initiative for the visually impaired …

The JCB Literature Foundation announced an initiative to make books shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature more accessible to the visually impaired. As part of this important initiative, the Foundation is working with Sugamaya Pustakalya, India’s first and largest collection of accessible books, to make books that were shortlisted for the 2019 JCB Prize for Literature available as e-books for free download by the visually impaired community. For the first time ever, these shortlisted books will be accessible to those with a wide spectrum of visual impairment. Furthermore, the e-books will be made available to international libraries for visually impaired communities in other countries.

The Foundation has also partnered with Access for All to create a physical Braille copy of the 2019 JCB Prize for Literature winner, Madhuri Vijay’s The Far Field. Copies of the book, which will come with a tactile cover thus providing a complete user experience for the visually impaired, will be donated to Braille libraries across the country.

Next event…

Festival Producer Sanjoy K. Roy, Managing Director of Teamwork Arts announced the dates of the next edition as 28 January-1 February 2021 and mentioned some of the big-ticket authors who will be addressing the next edition of this truly incomparable literary carnival, which includes Alain de Botton, Christos Tsiolkas, Edmund de Waal, Eric Cronell, Geroger Saunders, Hermione Lee, Ian Rankin, Karen Armstrong, Lawrence Wright, Neil Gaiman, Nikesh Shukla, Peter Morgan, Prabhat Ranjan, Shehan Karunatilaka, Stacy Schiff, Vandana Singh-Lal, and Vikram Chandra. (Source: Zee Jaipur Literature Festival)