This May, award-winning creators of luxurious and sustainable resorts, Soneva will launch the inaugural 10 day Jaipur Literary Festival Soneva Fushi, the first ever to land in the Maldives. Boasting an enviable line-up which includes industry trailblazers such as André Aciman of Call Me By Your Name, director Mira Nair of Monsoon Wedding & The Namesake fame, Shashi Tharoor, Vikas Swarup and Gopalkrishna Gandhi, to name a few.
For the literary lovers among us, the JLF programme is set to realise all bibliophile and cinephile dreams with informative Q&As on film with acclaimed directors at open-air Cinema Paradiso, daily sunset poetry recitals with acclaimed wordsmiths as well as a host of exciting educational and immersive activities including morning yoga sessions, stimulating workshops and delicious seafood-filled lunches.
The full festival programme will see a global line-up of critically acclaimed authors, thinkers, and cultural leaders descend upon the Maldivian island from 13th – 22nd May 2022.
With 30 speakers and authors now confirmed, the full JLF Soneva Fushi line-up will celebrate the theme of Slow Life, covering a fascinating spectrum of topics: from nation-building to the natural world, politics to poetry, fiction and filmmaking to hard-hitting journalism, and spirituality to scientific discovery.
The Full Programme
The festival will span exhilarating discourse across themes that include Film and Adaptations; Politics and the World Order; Science, Innovation and the Environment; Travel Writing; History; Fiction; Poetry; Music; Miniatures; and Food and Memory catering to all beloved genres and areas of interest.
Each weekend, the programme will be dedicated to flagship events, including keynote addresses, gala dinners on the sand, sunset poetry cruises, live musical performances and film screenings at Cinema Paradiso. Stand-out sessions include an inaugural address by Soneva Co-Founders Eva and Sonu Shivdasani, alongside Festival Co-Directors Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple and Festival Producer Sanjoy K. Roy, followed by welcome cocktails on Turtle Beach; director Mira Nair in conversation at Cinema Paradiso as a precursor to a star-lit screening of Monsoon Wedding; a sunset poetry cruise, hosted by Arundhathi Subramaniam; and a keynote session with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Weekdays at JLF Soneva Fushi will focus on more intimate sessions and author discussions, as well as featuring a range of engaging workshops where you can unleash your own creativity, including creative arts and writing, Bollywood dancing and glassblowing. In true JLF tradition, each day at JLF Soneva Fushi will start and end with music. Every morning, the festival will begin with a choice of enriching and enlightening sessions that focus on expanding guests’ horizons before breakfast, including yoga and meditation, dance sessions with acclaimed choreographers Gilles Chuyen and Puneeta Roy, guided snorkelling with Soneva Fushi’s resident Marine Biologist, glassblowing at the Soneva Art & Glass studio, and transforming waste aluminium into art at the Makers’ Place.
