The second annual JLF Seattle will take place from September 18th to September 21st at Seattle Asian Art Museum, Town Hall Seattle, and Viya Contemporary. Enjoy live music, discussion, keynotes, and much more.
JLF Seattle is part of the international chapter of the iconic Jaipur Literature Festival, the largest literary festival in the world. Now spanning 13 cities across 9 countries, it represents an international celebration of literature in all its forms. Stories do not exist in a vacuum, and the goal of this event is to bring together history, stories, ideas, and people.
The Seattle edition will feature keynote speakers like Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen, and winner of the Booker Prize, Kiran Desai.
The Jaipur Literature Festival was started 19 years ago by novelist Namita Gokhale and Scottish historian William Dalrymple. Dr. Alka Kurian, Executive Director of JLF Seattle, has been trying to bring JLF to Seattle for 11 years.
“After a long series of phone calls, and emails and meetings, it eventually happened last year,” said Kurian. “It’s an expensive festival, mostly because it’s an international festival, but we are grateful because we got a lot of community support. Not only were we able to host the festival, but we were completely blown away by the response of the audience.”
This response is indicative of the demand for these spaces and conversations in Seattle.
As the South Asian diaspora expands there is an increasing need for these stories to “help us in times of discomfort and remind us that we are human,” says Professor Kurian. The beauty of the Jaipur Literature Festival is that in each city, in each country, it adapts to its own kind of diaspora through community needs and interests.
JLF is not just a discussion of literature, of Indian or South Asian literature; it is a culmination of live music, of democracy, art, of human experience. It is a reminder that the festival goes beyond “literature,” embracing politics, history, mathematics, and science—fields that are reflected in this year’s keynote speakers.
Register for the event online at https://jlflitfest.org/online.
Dani Madan is a storyteller, painter, writer, and aspiring journalist from Seattle,Washington. She believes strongly in connecting, exploring truths through narrative, and the role of writing in shaping the world. She loves to write, get creative, and spend time outside when not doing the other two things.
