Writers Without Borders

Of the many reasons I love living in Colorado, the Jaipur Literature Festival is one of them. Wait a minute. Jaipur? Isn’t that in India? And they have a literature festival? Yes, they do. Known simply as JLF, it’s the world’s largest, un-ticketed event free to all, no matter how rich or poor.

The motto of the festival is “Stories Unite Us.” Geographically, Boulder, Colorado is 7,825 miles from Jaipur, but each year JLF brings the city a wealth of international writers, humanitarians, business people, artists, and philosophers. Boulder is one of five locations in the U.S. to host the event, much more convenient for me to participate in this feast of ideas.

This year, JLF Colorado in Boulder was awash in brightly colored banners and saris. Vibrant music and tantalizing smells of Indian food filled the air along with animated discourse. Among the speakers were local authors David Heska Wanbli Weiden and Margaret Coel discussing the crossroads of crime—a topic near and dear to my writing.

I was fortunate to attend a talk by the famed writer and JLF founder Namita Gokhale. A journalist and award-winning author, she recalled growing up in the mountains in India with her grandmother, who believed a tablespoon of brandy was the cure to all illness. Many of her works dealt with how a culture’s mythology defines behavior. When asked what was a writer’s responsibility, she replied, “A writer’s responsibility is to be irresponsible.”

A simple statement, which at first, struck me as an oxymoron. However, the more I consider her viewpoint, the more I agree. As writers, we need to challenge our strongly held cultural myths, to take risks, to shake our own convictions. That is the true power that all art wields.

For more information on JLF, please see https://jlflitfest.org.