Clik here to view.
Jaipur and All That
I’ve been warned that the Jaipur Literature Festival is no longer the cozy and cheerfully eccentric fest of my memories–”darling, it’ll be like Polo Season out there,” a friend said darkly, packing her...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Jaipur Literature Festival: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
“Censorship isn’t just something imposed by the state,” says Ali Sethi. “It’s also a mental state.” Free speech isn’t one of the themes for the JLF this year, but like the various memes floating around...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Jaipur Literature Festival: final notes
-The Hanif Kureishi-Amitava Kumar session was a classic example of how matching the right moderator to the right writer can pay off massive dividends. The JLF had a little trouble with this, with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Jaipur Literature Festival: finallyfinally
(I promise, this is the last of the updates–my column for the Business Standard, which reprises some of the stuff in the blog posts. For a really thoughtful critique of the festival, see Namita...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Speaking Volumes: The Jaipur Litfest Primer
(Published in the Business Standard, January 3, 2010)Perhaps the only way to understand the Jaipur Literature Festival is to think of a traditional mehfil crossed with a darbar. Over six years, the JLF...
View ArticleClik here to view.
JLF: writers, voices of
Martin Amis on writing about sex:“It’s impossible to write autobiographically about sex. What voice can you use: ‘Bravo, I took her again in the morning?’”and on writing: “To accuse a novelist of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
JLF: excerpts
On writing with the reader in mind:Martin Amis: I never think of you. No, I think you’re dead if you’re writing for a certain reader.Richard Ford: I couldn’t disagree more. I think if you don’t have a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ten of the best: JLF sessions
The official recordings of the sessions by Amitava Kumar, Hari Kunzru, Jeet Thayil and Ruchir Joshi where the writers read out from the Satanic Verses as a gesture of protest are not available on the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The JLF columns: Unhearing the words
(Published in the Business Standard on January 23rd and 24th; both were written at the Jaipur Literature Festival. This is the first piece.)There were two Jaipur Literature Festivals this year. The...
View Article
