The 2024 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali runs October 23-27. “After our 20th anniversary, we are excited to build on last year’s success by offering an even more eclectic program of events and joy, alongside bold visions for the future,” festival founder and director Janet DeNeefe says.
This 21st edition of the festival features my former CNN colleague Maria Ressa providing perspectives on journalism and press freedom in these troubling times of disinformation and rising authoritarianism. Also addressing the topic Paul Caruana Galizia, son of assassinated Maltese investigative reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia, and Drew Ambrose, whose current Al Jazeera series Flattening the Curve examines the uneven global response to Covid-19 and its implications moving forward.
Indonesian national icon for press freedom as well as the arts and letters Goenawan Mohamad will premiere his adaptation of Don Quixote for wayang golek, traditional wooden puppets. Other host country literary stars coming to Ubud this year include Cigarette Girl (Gadis Kretek) author Ratih Kumala, plus Dee Lestari, Ayu Utami and Agustinus Wibowo, each to talk about their latest works. There’s also a tribute to Pramoedya Ananta Toer, imprisoned under Suharto’s New Order regime, featuring the novelist’s 87 year old brother Soesilo Toer.
“We take pride in shining a spotlight on this vast yet often overlooked nation’s writers, artists, thinkers, and performers, with the hope that the world will one day recognize their talent, just as we do,” DeNeefe says.
The festival in picturesque Ubud will also host best selling UK historians William Dalrymple, Ben Bland and Sathnam Sanghera, celebrated Indian novelist Amitav Ghost, French-Chinese American writer Aube Rey Lescure and dozens of others, appearing in a relaxed, intimate setting. Plus there’s music, film, poetry and, yes, puppetry at one of the world’s top literary events, well worth a trip from anywhere.
Former US diplomat and broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen is Asia editor at large for iGaming Business, a longtime contributor to Forbes, columnist for Asia Times and author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set in his adopted hometown during the 1997 handover about TV news, love, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie. See his biography, online archive and more at www.muhammadcohen.com; follow him on Facebook, ex-Twitter @MuhammadCohen and LinkedIn.