The Jaipur Jamboree

Image: Colin McPherson/ Corbis

Pakistani writer Fatima Bhutto

Over the years, the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival has turned out to be as much a place to spot the well-heeled as it is to mingle with the well-read. The line-up for the 2012 version of the biggest free literature festival in the world seems as promising as previous years. Expect to hear Sri Lanka-born novelist Michael Ondaatje, Pakistani writer Fatima Bhutto, Nigerian author Ben Okri, playwrights Tom Stoppard and David Hare and New Yorker editor David Remnick among the nearly 200 speakers. Notable among the non-fiction speakers are Abhijit Banerjee, Amy Chua, Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker. Also expected are faces that have become a standard feature of the festival like Chetan Bhagat, Javed Akhtar, Barkha Dutt, Gulzar and Girish Karnad. With the festival growing bigger each year, organisers have made (free) registration compulsory for better crowd management. Visitors can either register online, or at the venue.  

So register online today, and don’t forget to pack that designer shawl. The Jaipur Literature Festival 2012 is on from January 20 – January 24.

For more details go to jaipurliteraturefestival.org