Jaipur Literature Festival, 21-25 January 2009

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News 30th March 2009

The DSC Jaipur Literature Festival, now in its third year, has grown to be one of the largest writer’s festivals in Asia.  Over one hundred and sixty seven authors and various other artists attended the Festival held at the Diggi Palace, Jaipur from the 21st till the 25th of January 2009.   

Organized by OSIAN and produced by TeamWork Productions, various authors and publishers were given an opportunity to interact with book-philes and the general public, for whom participation was completely free of charge. 

The organizers of the Festival strongly believe that South Asia can only realize its true identity and pursue cultural harmony by promoting literature, the arts and culture. 

The cardinal objective of the South Asia Foundation is to promote regional cooperation between South Asian communities through education, cultural interaction, and sustainable economic development with the vision of establishing a common currency in the SAARC countries.  SAF felt that such a festival is in consonance with its objectives; to support the organizers, SAF-India provided the organizers a sum of INR 1,00,000. 

Of the many themes selected this year, oral traditions from different parts of the world were in focus.  Mrs Wendy Doniger, an American scholar of history and religion examined the relevance of narration and other “oral concepts” in Hindu literary traditions.  Mrs. Arisha Sattar also spoke of oral traditions in Indian literature and performance.   Various other seminars were held throughout the course of the festival-week, dealing with varied issues from the art of writing, to fundamentalism in an emerging and developing economy. 

On the evening of the 24th of January, the film “The Oral and Intangible Heritage of South Asia”, produced by Ambassador Madanjeet Singh, was presented at the open-air theater at the Diggi Palace garden.  The film, which was made for UNESCO’s 60th anniversary, showcased over forty performance artists from across South Asia; this film was well received by attending participants. Over a hundred copies of “The Sasia Story”, the SAF Monograph, “The Oral and Intangible Heritage of South Asia” and “This My People” (all of which are authored by Mr. Singh) were freely distributed with the help of volunteers.