New Delhi: Every January, the pink city transforms into a melting pot of thought, conversation, and innovative ideas with the Jaipur Literature Festival bringing in authors, readers, and literary critics from all over the world.
The 2026 edition of the JLF, presented by Vedanta, will have more than 300 sessions and over 500 speakers, taking place in the sun-warmed courtyards of Hotel Clarks, Amer, from 15 to 19 January 2026. The lineup for the JLF includes Nobel laureates, historians, and innovators presented by Vedanta, Teamwork Arts, and ThePrint. It returns not just as an event, but as a sharp, sprawling inquiry into the worlds we inhabit and the futures we fear, desire, and debate.
For many writers, it is more of a pilgrimage of thoughts rather than a gathering. Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai returns to Jaipur with ‘The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny’, which delves into the fragile fault lines of identity and modern love. Banu Mushtaq, fresh from her maiden International Booker prize win, brings ‘Heart Lamp’, a luminous and unsettling portrait of the inner rebellions of Muslim women in southern India.
Former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will be in conversation with Georgina Godwin for a candid reflection on political responsibility and personal identity. Comedian Vir Das will unpack his memoir ‘The Outsider’ exploring how mischief, migration, and memory shape belonging.
World chess grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand will revisit the quicksilver brilliance of his early years, drawing from his memoir ‘Lightning Kid’.
“The world is our oyster as we examine history and the future, politics and the present. Nothing human is alien to us. We speak in many tongues and celebrate multilingual discourse, from Japanese manga to India’s twenty-two national languages,” said author Namita Gokhale, Co-Founder and Festival Co-Director.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, an inventor, will trace the urgent choices shaping the future of the web, and Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales examines trust and open collaboration in a time of digital suspicion.
William Dalrymple, Co-Founder and Festival Co-Director, clarifies his relentless ambition about the festival by stating, “We are throwing all these fabulous elements into a Jaipuri crucible where they mix and bubble and ferment. The 2026 edition may well be our most ambitious yet: reimagined classics, urgent debates on AI, luminous poetry, bold fiction. Nowhere else will audiences encounter such breadth, depth and wonder.”
Sanjoy K. Roy, Managing Director of Teamwork Arts, underscored that the purpose of the festival is to extend our horizons beyond spectacle.
“With speakers from more than 25 countries, this edition reflects the power of cultural exchange. Jaipur Literature Festival has always been a meeting ground for communities, a celebration of creative expression, and an invitation to discover new ways of seeing.”
The JLF hopes to once again transform the city into a map of the world because of its questions, fears, stories, and dreams, and remind us why literature still matters for our imagination to thrive collectively.
ThePrint is the official media partner for the Jaipur Literature Festival 2026.
Registrations can be made on the Jaipur Literature Festival’s website or at https://bit.ly/jlf_