All about The Jaipur Literature Festival 2023- Day 1

This is a contribution post by Anushree Saha

Jaipur Literature Festival is often known as the Greatest Literary Show on Earth and truly so. With a wide array of speakers, authors, change-makers and literary geniuses, this festival attracts book enthusiasts from all across the globe! JLF 2023 was beaming with national and international personalities from 19^th to 23^rd January 2023 at Hotel Clark, Amer, Jaipur in Rajasthan.

Day 1 at The Jaipur Literature Festival

Jaipur Literature Festival 2023 kickstarted with the inaugural ceremony and keynote address by Namita Gokhale, William Dalrymple, Sanjoy Roy and Abdulrazak Gurnah. Sessions unfolded in different areas of the festival like the Front Lawn, Charbagh, Darbar Hall, Mughal Tent and Baithak.

There were speakers like Booker Prize winner Beranardine Evaristo in conversation with Nandini Nair. Bibek Debroy spoke about the importance of Brahma Puranas. Romance lovers delved into the session of Durjoy Datta in conversation with Kiran Manral, where he spoke about his latest book- When I am with you.

Some other interesting sessions included the Book Launch of Negotiating the New Normal by Saurav Jha. Eswar Prasad in conversation and launch by Shashi Tharoor. They mentioned the continuous macro-micro economics conflict with emphasis on China-USA polarity. Saurav Jha focused on multi-alignment as a strategy for India and need to understand the four major international economic blocs.

A fun and enriching conversation was of Shobhaa De with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and launch of her book – Unsatiable: My hunger for Life by Usha Uthup. Shobhaa De got candid with the audience saying her original name was like writing Mahabharata every time and hence the name change. But she never felt a Shobhaa and would die as Anuradha. Upon being asked, what was the secret to her beauty, she replied Maharashtrian Amti, Macher Jhol, a good gene pool and of course Ponds cream!

Seema Sirohi was in conversation with C Raja Mohan about the India-US story. An informative session about differences in economic growth, India purchasing oil, gas etc from US as well and not only Russia. They also spoke about barriers to trade like India needing certification of cheese imports from America, where cows have eaten a vegan diet!

Ambedkar: A Life – Shashi Tharoor’s latest biography was introduced by Sumit Samos in conversation with Pragya Tiwari. Shashi Tharoor desired to bring forth a concise version of the mammoth sized information already existing about BR Ambedkar. He emphasized on the fact that Ambedkar has more busts than Mahatma Gandhi making him an unchallengeable icon indeed.

Geetanjali Shree and Daisy Rockwell were in conversation with Tanuj Solanki, where they spoke about Ret Samadhi or Tomb of Sand, the Booker Prize winner for the English translation. The importance of translation, language and culture were discussed at length.

A number of international participants like Emily Perkins, Eugenia Kuznetsova, Ana Filomena Amaral and Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin in conversation with Saskya Jain spoke about the Feminine Gaze and its impact on writing.

It ended with a poetry hour where Doris Kareva, Ranjit Hoskote, Deepti Naval and Siddharth Dasgupta conducted poetry readings in varied languages and styles, perfect for poetry lovers of all kinds.

Along with these amazing discussions, Jaipur Literature Festival 2023 also had a number of fun activities going around like tattoo making, Festival Buzzar where you could shop authentic handicrafts, quiz booths where one could win books, bags and more, an AI art making and postcard booth by Thisday app, a chance to be on radio by Red FM, an Etsy booth, The Singleton time capsule and Haiku booth, a food court and lastly, a plethora of gorgeous points to get your pictures clicked.

With a mix of publishers, authors, bookstagrammers and book lovers, it was a perfect first day leaving participants in anticipation of what was yet to come!

Have you ever attended the Jaipur Literature Fest? Stay tuned for days 2-3!

Anushree Saha aka My Word Bubble (blog) is an avid reader, writer and knowledge-seeker from Mumbai, who believes herself to be a Philomath- a lover of learning. She is a freelancer, book blogger, poetry, art and journaling enthusiast. Her poems have been previously published in anthologies such as Carnations, Beyond Life, Anika and Little Love notes. Also, an Amazon Verified Influencer, you can explore her bookish world further on Instagram.