What is it about literary festivals and readers? Why do readers flock to hear their favourite writers and get books signed? Why are such festivals an important part of the literary calendar?
In India, the literary festival cycle begins at Jaipur, which hosts one of the country’s biggest literary events. Though the Jaipur Literature Festival may be at the top of the carnival of books, through the year, there are literary festivals in several cities including Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Bhubaneswar, Dehradun, and Dumka. Literature apart, there is music, art, theatre and a host of other activities, which add to the festive atmosphere.
This year, at the Dumka Literature Festival, readers of the Jharkhand town got to listen to Geetanjali Shree about her International Booker Prize-winning novel Tomb of Sand, translated by Daisy Rockwell from Ret Samadhi in Hindi. Her presence in Dumka brought her new readers, and her session, ‘How I Came to Writing’, must have been an inspiration for those wanting to take up the pen.
