Ajit: When are you leaving for the Jaipur Literary Festival?
Manjushree: I´ll be at the festival on the 21st, and will stay till the end on the 25th. I´ve never been to Jaipur, or to this festival, so I´m delighted to be going.
Ajit: What are you going to be doing at the festival? Reading? Giving a talk? Appearing in a panel discussion?
Manjushree: I´ll be in a panel discussion on ´Writing in times of insurgency.´ I´ll be making a short presentation, along with the other panelists, and then there will be a discussion and questions and answers.
Ajit: Who else are on the panel?
Manjushree: Arupa Patangia Kalita, an Assamese writer who has written about conflicts in the Indian north-east, and Sudeep Chakravarti, whose book ´Red Sun,´ on the Maoist movement in India, I just reviewed for The Kathmandu Post.
Ajit: Could you share with us the gist of the things that you would be saying?
Manjushree: I´ll talk about the experience of writing reportage on the war in Nepal, and also the experience of writing fiction about it. These are two very different ways of approaching the same theme.
Ajit: How many writers are participating in the festival? Can you name some prominent writers?
Manjushree: William Dalrymple and Namita Gokhale are two of the main organizers of the festival; they´ll both be there. There are a lot of other international writers coming whose work interests me greatly, such as Tash Aw, Nadeem Aslam, Tahmina Anam, Hari Kunzru and Patrick French.Tina Brown and Tarun Tejpal will be talking in one session. Mohammed Hanif, whose novel ´A Case of Exploding Mangoes´ is one of the best South Asian novels I´ve read in a long time, will be reading. Pico Iyer, Colin Thubron and Simon Schama are in the schedule. There are also many prominent figures from Indian writing and publishing, including Urvashi Butalia, Ravi Singh, Ashis Nandy, Antara Dev Sen, Indrajeet Hazra, Gurcharan Das and Shashi Tharoor. So the festival looks like it will be a lot of fun this year.
Ajit: Are there any writers that you admire and have wanted to meet?
Manjushree: It´s always interesting to be around other writers. Writing can be a lonely profession, and it´s always good to be in the company of others who understand its difficulties and rewards. There are many writers whom I admire who will be at the festival this year. I´m disappointed, though, that Michael Ondaatje, who is one of my all-time favorite writers, has canceled this year. I had been very, very excited about being in his vicinity―but that will have to wait!
Ajit: What is the importance of such a literary festival?
Manjushree: For people who enjoy reading, and love books, a festival like this is a delight. The talks are stimulating, but there´s also a lot of fun and games, and entertainment. (Amitabh Bachchan and Nandita Das will also be talking on different panels). So the atmosphere is intellectual but not stodgy. Neither is this a commercial enterprise.
Of course there are books for sale, but really, the emphasis is on the content of the books―ideas, thoughts, expressions. It´s a celebration of literature, and an assertion of its value to cultural life today.
Ajit: Why hasn´t there been any effort to organize similar festivals in Nepal?
Manjushree: Film festivals have caught on in Nepal―once the habit was formed (by KIMFF and Himal´s South Asian Film Festival) everyone seems to be organizing small film festivals. But there has not been an effort to do the same for books.
So far there have been only book fairs in Nepal, with an emphasis on sales. There hasn´t been any kind of celebration of literature. I think there are enough readers and book-lovers here to merit such a festival. Literary festivals tend to take place in societies where book publishing is a professional enterprise, and where book reviewing, book discussions, book sales and marketing―the life of books―is very organized. All these aspects are still a bit pell-mell in Nepal. But if someone were to put together a festival, it would contribute, I think, to stimulating growth and to organizing the world of books here.
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