Go Now: Intimate Venues and Mountain Views at Bhutan’s Literature Festival this August August 12, 2016

National Geographic Traveller

July 5, 2016

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Go Now: Intimate Venues and Mountain Views at Bhutan’s Literature Festival this August

Pico Iyer, Amitav Ghosh, Mridula Koshy, and Zac O’Yeah will be there. | By NGT Staff

An hour’s drive away from Thimphu, where the festival will take place, is the Dochula Pass. Here, 108 chortens (stupas) have been built in memory of Bhutanese soldiers. Photo: Göran Höglund (Kartläsarn)/Flickr/Creative Commons (http://bit.ly/1jxQJMa)

Among the many things Bhutan is getting right—over 72 per cent of the country’s land is covered by forest—is the Mountain Echoes literature festival, a gathering of writers and book lovers that takes place in Thimphu, the country’s capital city.

From August 25-28, 2016, Mountain Echoes will host stimulating panel discussions on writing, spirituality, and most significantly, about climate change and its impact on Bhutan’s compelling history. The speakers in attendance include literary heavyweights Pico Iyer, Amitav Ghosh, Mita Kapur, Mridula Koshy, and Zac O’Yeah. There are also workshops on creative writing (by writer and development specialist Sonam Wangmo Jhalani), brand building and advertising (by Piyush Pandey, the creative director of Ogilvy & Mather India and South Asia), and yoga (by writer and yoga teacher Ira Trivedi).