In Case of Litfest Break Glass

Now everytime there's an article about a literary festival, I have to read it and take notes ... just in case .... just in case ... just ... (I really wouldn't be that rash ever again, would I? *Slaps hand across mouth in horror*)

But if I did I hope the event wouldn't be as straightlaced and sensible and let's face it ... predicitable ... as last time.

Wouldn't it be fun if it were more like the Port Eliot Literary Festival?:

Kunzru is a keen supporter of Port Eliot's philosophy of letting writers do something 'other than their ordinary shtick. It's not like Hay - you're unlikely to get anyone reading from their book; instead you'll get an author demonstrating how to make a martini-based cocktail. It's a great deal of fun,' he concludes.

Kunzru

Hmmm ... what can our local writers apart from read? Kutu guys, what are your hidden talents?

Jeanette Winterson in The Times also talks about literary festivals, though of the slightly more conventional kind.

Winterson

I

t is a little bit strange that reading, which is the most solitary and private of acts, should translate into the gospel tent euphoria of the festival. This has happened because people love to be read to, as they did when they were kids; because they are curious to meet the writers who interest them; and most of all, because they are curious to meet each other. Reader’s groups and dedicated websites are about securing the connections that books suggest. All art is about connection, and in a world that often comes to us in bewildering fragments, the connections that art offers are increasingly necessary.

She also talks about how setting up such a festival does not need huge infusions of cash and need not be a "developed country" phonomena.

I have been told, by the cynics, that literary festivals can operate only in rich countries with time and money to spare, so that the thing becomes a kind of cultural health farm, where you go to shed an overdose of soap operas and tone some intellectual muscle.

I thought it would be interesting to put this to the test by accepting an invitation to Brazil for the Festa Literária Internacional de Parati, a festival just three years old, in a tiny town halfway between Rio and São Paulo.

Liz Calder, the Bloomsbury supremo who discovered Salman Rushdie and J. K. Rowling, has a house outside Parati, and decided to start a literary festival there because she thought “it would be good for everything”.

She had no money, she had no backers, but she knew that Brazilians love ideas and that they are open-minded. She launched the festival, and in the first year had 800 visitors, in the second year, 12,000, yes, that nought is 12,000, and now has so many people who want to come along, that they have big-screen monitors and overflow tents.

Enthusiasm makes all the difference. Here in Malaysia the cash can certainly be found with a little looking. But do we have an equal enthusiasm for intellectual engagement?