A shout-out for this year’s edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival, which is taking place from January 21-25 at the usual venue, the scenic Diggi Palace. Details are on the official website, including the (not fully updated) schedule of events. Many big names in attendance, including Michael Ondaatje (still to be confirmed, I think), Vikram Seth, Pico Iyer, Colin Thubron, Tina Brown and Nandan Nilekani, but as always many of the lower-profile sessions will be worth attending – and easier to find seating space for. Some potential highlights:

- “Writers’ Chain: Found in Translation” – a session that comes as a follow-up to a week in Neemrana, where four poets from the UK spent time with four Indian authors, exploring each other’s work through translation.

- “Celebrating Vijay Dandetha”, a tribute to the Rajasthani writer, with the screening of a short film about his work

- A reading by the Malaysian author Tash Aw

- “Shehar dar Shehar”, with Alka Saraogi, Govind Mathur, Satya Narayana and Udayan Vajpeyi

- “Pabuji and the Bhopa”, featuring Mohan Bhopa, practitioner of a traditional storytelling art of Rajasthan, and William Dalrymple

- “Where is Sanskrit?”, a conversation between Sheldon Pollock, Alok Bhalla and Ananya Vajpeyi

I’ll be there for four days; am moderating the Hari Kunzru session on the 22nd (the focus will be his fine novel My Revolutions, which somehow didn’t attract much attention in India) and co-moderating the Chetan Bhagat session on the 23rd (wherein I hope to ask Chetan many incisive literary questions such as “You’re the first ever author to have been played by Salman Khan in a film. How does it feel, you lucky dude?!”).

See the full programme, and keep checking for updates.

[Some posts about previous editions of the festival: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]