The list of Asian literature festivals is ever-expanding
Bhutan, as you probably know, is the only country in the world to measure the Gross National Happiness of its citizens. For its book lovers, there’s going to be a spike in the graph, come May, when its capital, Thimphu, plays host to the India-Bhutan Foundation’s Mountain Echoes, the country’s first literary festival.
It joins the ever-expanding list of Asian literature festivals — there were jamborees in Hong Kong, Dubai and Karachi in the past month alone — and features some of the usual suspects: Namita Gokhale is programme consultant, Mita Kapur’s Siyahi is an associate, and Pavan Varma, the writer-diplomat who is currently India’s ambassador to Bhutan, is one of the lead movers behind it.(This story appears in the 16 April, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)