Zee Jaipur Lit Fest 2019 Stories

Inaugural Session

Inaugural Session

Inaugural Address by H.E. Mr. Nils Ragnar Kamsvåg, NamitaGokhale, Naveen Kishore, Sanjoy K. Roy and Vera Michalski-Hoffmann, Neeta Gupta

Keynote Address: The Freedom to Publish

Juergen Boos introduced by Margit Walsø

By Aurodeep Mukherjee, Official ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival Blogger

The Jaipur BookMark(JBM) began on a sunny morning with a flurry of red, white and gold, to the joyful beat of drums and the high notes of a conch. With the auspicious lighting of the lamp, the JBM entered its sixth year. The panel of illustrious speakers from the world of literature and publishing highlighted the role of the industry in times of increasing technological access and threats to free speech.

Neeta Gupta, co-director of Jaipur BookMark (JBM), began by thanking the sponsors and partners of the festival. In a country with an enormous readership and a flourishing publishing industry, she hailed JBM as the "space to understand these millennial opportunities in publishing."

Festival producer Sanjoy K. Roy remarked, "Hatred and divisiveness are the predominant narrative in today's world. The one way to overcome that is through translations." He emphasised the role of the publishing industry in improving the quality and increasing the accessibility of translations: only this can bridge the gaps between cultures and lead to an understanding that "our narratives are the same."

Festival co-director Namita Gokhale stated that the objective of the JBM was to "foster synergies between South Asia and the world." She briefly traced the history of language and literature in India through its rich culture of orality, writing in stone and copper and then on to manuscripts. Gokhale further observed that this heritage of manuscripts would in future be an important part of the festival. For now, as ever, the effort was to "restore the centrality of our book culture."

Norwegian Ambassador H.E. Mr.Nils Ragnar Kamsvåg quipped, "Governments can't write books, can't create art, and we recognise that." He added, however, that governments can provide infrastructure, which is essential for any endeavour.

Naveen Kishore of Seagull Books then delivered a speech on the importance of establishing a common platform for trade and exchange in a world with a flourishing publishing industry. "In a diverse country such as ours, no easy solution is possible," he declared, "but this has been possible thanks to the assistance from like-minded people from various countries."

Veteran publisher Vera Michalski-Hoffmann of the Jan Michalski Foundation returned to the festival after three years. One of the people who have been with the ZEEJLF team from the beginning, she believes in the objectives that unite her foundation and the festival: "to attract people to books and reading."

"The arts have the ability to bring us into the unknown," observed Margit Walsø, director of Norwegian Literature Abroad, the person responsible for Norway being the Guest of Honour at the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2019. She called all literature venues good examples of spaces "where meanings can be exchanged."

"JLF is a festival of ideas and literatures and a conference of cultures," Juergen Boos, Director of the Frankfurter Buchmesse, said in his keynote address. He appreciated the stunning advances in technology in the 21st century and the ease of publication and access to information. However, Boos also cautioned against religious intolerance and silencing of free speech: "In an age when fake news can be disseminated faster than a well-researched book... publishers are gatekeepers since they curate before they publish," and therefore can determine the knowledge that goes out into the world.