Jaipur Literature Festival claims to have once again championed young writers through their outreach and engagement activities in and around Jaipur.

For the third year, the Festival has partnered with Pratham Books to produce over 25 interactive sessions, promoting the love of books to schools across Jaipur including, SKIT, Jaipur; The Step by Step, St. Xavier, Pratham supported schools and Vodafone supported schools.

Authors taking part this year include, Paro Anand (author), Valentina Trivedi (storyteller), Anita Mani (Storyteller/news-for-children newspaper editor), Ajit Narayan (Illustrator/cartoonist), Devyani Bhardwaj (Poet/journalist/translator). Visiting Festival authors include journalist and author of When the Crocodile Eats the Sun, Peter Godwin, Harvard history professor and author of the award winning Liberty Exiles, Dr. Maya Jasanoff, actor, writer and director Mahesh Dattani and art historian Partha Mitter who specialises in Indian art.

Dr. Peter Stanley, a Professor at the University of New South Wales, Festival author and Outreach Participant commented, “It was a pleasure to participate in the JLF-Pratham Books Outreach Program by talking to, and with, the students. I very much enjoyed my encounter with Young India, and wish we could have had longer sessions!”

Local author Valentina Trivedi also said, “I was thrilled to field questions on creative writing process from the children many of whom might come up as authors in due course of time. It was one of the most fulfilling experiences for me.”

Himanshu Giri, Chief Operating Officer of Pratham Books added, “Children and Institutions at Jaipur have given us overwhelming response and it is quite likely that by next year we will double the number of sessions for outreach at JLF and make attempt to reach to more and more children.”

During the event, the Festival also champions and encourages new writers through the official Festival blog. A team of 12 writers drawn from across Jaipur and the rest of the world cover the Festival, attending sessions, and publishing blogs on the festival website.

One of the participants, Deeptarka Mukherjee from Jaipur said, “Being on the JLF blog has been an exhilarating and refreshing experience, also a great learning for me and I think this will contribute very much towards my career.”