British Library

From Jaipur to London

The Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) is one of the world’s great literature events. It takes place in Jaipur, India every January. Since 2017 the British Library has hosted the London edition; each year over 1,000 people flock to the British Library for two full days of back-to-back panel debates, talks and live music, as well as a Friday night ‘curtain raiser’ at the London JLF. Speakers from India, the United Kingdom and around the world cover themes ranging across art and history, literature and poetry, society and science.

We are delighted to support the British Library with a grant of £45,000 towards London JLF in 2023. This will support the British Library to realise the potential of JLF in terms of audience reach and impact for the library.

400,000 people watch JLF online in the UK and internationally.
Events at London JLF 2023 include discussions on the impact of Bollywood, the importance of libraries, creativity in the arts and the sciences, prime number theory and how climate change has shaped civilisations across time.
6 million people visit the British Library every year.

Drawing a new crowd

JLF is the only Festival in London which explores Indian culture, politics and society in such depth and in both a regional and global context. The library hopes that London JLF 2023 will help them to attract more first-time visitors, especially young people aged 18-25.

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. With a collection of over 170 million items including artefacts from every age of written civilisation, visitors get access to the world’s most comprehensive research collection. The library runs exhibitions and events all year round but JLF is the largest in their event calendar. This is the fourth grant that we’ve awarded the British Library. Read about the other projects we have funded here, here and here.