Who says people don’t read anymore The crowd bursting at the seams at Diggi Palace, the venue for the world’s largest literary fair, suggested anything but this.
Literary legend Margaret Atwood, the guest of honour at the Jaipur Literature Festival, too certainly doesn’t believe that the reading habit is diminishing. “Only the medium is changing,” she said in her keynote address that launched the ninth edition of the world’s largest free literary fair on Thursday.
In fact, Ms Atwood feels that the digital forum is rather a boon for writers as it expands their reach to places where people don’t have access to books or libraries. “If there were no readers, there wouldn’t be writers,” she said.
However, Ms Atwood, who has penned over 40 volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction and non-fiction, said that writers are cheap dates. “Writing is relatively inexpensive — all you require is the writers, their books and their voices.” Quoting Robertson Davies, she said, “Give me a silver penny and I will tell you a golden tale.”
She lauded the enormous reach of the Jaipur Literature festival. “To see this festival, which started very, very small and has now become the largest book fest in India and the largest free book fest in the entire world — that’s an amazing achievement.” She joked that to be invited as a keynote speaker, she must either be very important or very old.
According to her, by attending a festival like the JLF, the author gets connected with his or her other half, which is the reader.
