Ubud Reader and Writers Festival 2006,

The 3rd annual Ubud writer and readers Festival, held from 28 september until 3 october, was a great succes. The dozen of this men and women who worked very hard to make this year's event a must on Bali's calender deserve great kredit. The festival attracted a number of well-known writers, journalist and other from many countries and walks of life. The opening event on friday 29 september at the ubud palace set the pace for the many other workshops, reading, literary lunches and children's events that followed. Highlights included a lunch with acclaimed author and expert on Indian cooking, Madhur Jeffrey, sharing tales from her recently publishedn memoir, climbing the manggo tree; award-winning writer Anita Desai spinning captivating tales around the globe; William Dalrymple presenting an interesting lecture with slide based on his newest book, White Mughals; several prominent Balinese Authors discussing the role of babad in the island's identity and heritage; and varius book launching events from Indonesia and foreign authors. The festival attracted participants from international, expatriate and local communities, and one of the best aspect of festival was the oppurtunity to meet and discuss books and ideas with so many people from such different backgrounds. Those who participated in the Festival will no doubt agree that was also deserves credit for being linguistically and culturally accessible and many events talks that were either in bahasa Indonesia or English had translators available. As observe the festival's organizing body - the Saraswati Foundation, literacy and literature are the backbones of culture. In that regard, the festival was also a great succes for uniting different cultures, literary traditions and people in a dialogue of significance. Our only qualm, mind you, is that this exciting event occurs only once per year. (Taken from The Beatmeg.)