ABOUT THE BOOK
A brilliant, funny, and moving account of the characters that make festivals tick. There are the authors enjoying moments of adulation after years of creative isolation and the star-struck public allowed to mingle with their cultural icons. And those in-between who are both author and fan as is the case of Rudrani Rana, who attends one festival session after the other clutching a canvas bag which contains the labour of her life – an unsubmitted manuscript written and re-written until only the sentence ‘my body is a haunted house’ remains untouched.
Partly a love letter to one of the great literary shows on earth, partly a satire about the glittery set that throngs this literary venue year in year out, and partly an ode to the millions of aspiring writers who inhabit literary festivals,
Jaipur Journals
provides incisive insights into the heart of a literary festival.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Namita Gokhale, founder-director of the vibrant Jaipur Literary Festival, is herself a publisher and the acclaimed author of twenty books. Both non-fiction and fiction, they include the best-selling Paro: Dreams of Passion, Priya, and Things to Leave Behind. In 2017 Namita was awarded the first ever Centenary National Award for Literature by the Literary Society of Assam for her service to the Indian nation in supporting and showcasing Indian writing talents and creating a literary environment in the country. She has been described as one of the finest Indian writers. Namita Gokhale lives in New Delhi.
REVIEWS
'There is no event more magical than the Jaipur Lit Fest. This book captures the magic’
Gloria Steinem
'A wonderfully lively satire on the pretensions, frustrations and delights of the literary life, full of gentle wit, iconoclasm and mischief. ’
William Dalrymple
'Literary types will laugh in recognition as the novel overflows with pithy observations about the book world. You rarely stop to draw breath, but this is what gives Namita Gokhale’s novel its warmth, charm and vivacity.'
Ruth McKee,
Irish Times
‘Namita Gokhale's new novel is a literary laugh riot, which is sure to send the book world into a mad rush to unscramble who is who!’
Meena Kandasamy
'To Namita Gokhale and her paean to passion, imagination and the greatest literary festival in the world, I say "Hurrah and jolly hockey sticks!"'
Joshua Ferris
‘A multi-layered book that has a series of contrasting stories set
against the backdrop of the world-famous festival, coming together seamlessly into one big melting point.'
– Mita Mistry,
Eastern Eye