JAIPUR: The Pink City is decked up in celebration as the 19th edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) opens Thursday at Jaipur’s Hotel Clarks Amer, presented by the Vedanta group. Running till January 19, the festival founded in 2006 has once again drawn writers and readers from across the world.
Festival director Namita Gokhale described JLF 2026 as one marked by “spontaneity and spunk”. “Every edition brings opinions, counter-opinions and its own magic, but the spirit remains a joyous curiosity and openness to ideas,” she said at the inauguration, attended by Rajasthan CM Bhajan Lal Sharma and Deputy CM Diya Kumari.
Festival director William Dalrymple recalled its modest beginnings at Diggi Palace nearly two decades ago. “The quarter-full Durbar Hall at the very first festival had barely 25 people,” he said, recounting how an influx of visitors—who had mistakenly arrived looking for Amer Fort — unexpectedly filled the hall. Calling Rajasthan “the most perfect place” to launch a literary festival, Dalrymple noted that writers from across the world, including Nobel laureates, are drawn to Jaipur not just for the city but for its deep-rooted literary culture.
The opening day began on a musical note with a high-energy Carnatic performance by a five-piece ensemble featuring vocalists Aishwarya Vidya Raghunath and Rithvik Raja. At the venue, a large book stall managed by Crossword awaits the bookworms, featuring recent releases and works by all participating authors, including festival directors Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple.
Readers flocked to attend conversations, including sessions with Banu Mushtaq, 2025’s International Booker Prize, and Booker laureate Kiran Desai, who returns to fiction after two decades with The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. Translators Daisy Rockwell and Deepa Bhasthi discussed the layered journeys of translated texts in conversation with Kanishka Gupta, while poet Javed Akhtar engaged audiences in a wide-ranging dialogue on cinema, literature, love and patriotism. This year’s edition also places a strong spotlight on writing in regional languages, including Telugu writer Volga, Tamil writer Salma, and Mushtaq, alongside a renewed emphasis on translation and translated works.
Festival director Sanjoy K. Roy announced plans to take JLF’s Island Festival to Ireland in 2026, spanning four new cities. Roy said that while around 3.5 lakh people attend the festival in person over five days, its digital reach extends to nearly 30 million viewers worldwide.