JLF Soneva Fushi 2022 Testimonials

Hear from Our Guests

“We received an experience that will forever stay in our hearts and memories. From the moment we arrived, we were welcomed with open arms and made to feel like family and not guests. The experiences that you offered literally blew our minds away, each being more creative and spectacular. The food was divine and a sensory overload as usual, we felt like we were given the best of everything and nothing at all was too much trouble for your wonderful Hosts.”

Lucy Bruce, Soneva Fushi Enthusiast 

Our 2022 Speakers

Oh, it’s wonderful! It’s just amazing. I come here, I give talks, I listen to the most fabulous conversations. I just heard one now and it can go on…not just for a few days, it can go on for months and keep going…and the source of information is just fabulous.

André Acimen – Author & Memoirist

It’s incredible to be here in Soneva Fushi. It really is the most extraordinary place. And to be here with JLF which I had joined in the past but only virtually… and so for me… in some ways, it feels like a homecoming because I’m meeting people who I’ve had conversations with before but only through the computer. To be here with other people and in such an extraordinary place, it feels like a real privilege.

Patrick Radden KeefeWriter & Investigative Journalist

Oh, my heart is full, my eyes are full and my body is just filled with well-being. To be nourished with these ideas, this poetry, this music, and the intelligence of human beings around JLF Soneva Fushi is just really beyond words.

Mira Nair – Academy Award-nominated Director


It’s been an absolutely marvelous experience here at JLF Soneva Fushi. I gave an event for my book Rebel Ideas, masterfully hosted by professor Marcus du Sautoy. But it’s not just the events, which are stunningly good – of great variety, of insights and perspectives – but also talking to the guests and other authors and the people who’ve come here to listen and to share.

Matthew Syed – Author

It feels like a transformational experience already. To be somewhere so beautiful, so immersed in nature. The last three years, or probably two years, we have been on this pandemic where people have been living on their devices. Really to feel like you’re in a place where nature is all-powerful, forcing you to let go a little bit of the outside world…and to be more than that, just be in the community with people whom I find fascinating and interesting. And learning (on) every panel I have listened to or attended. I mean, that’s the case for any JLF festival, but particularly today, I feel like I learned so much so I’m just thrilled and honoured to be here.

Huma Abedin – 2009 US Deputy Chief of Staff

It’s an absolute privilege to be sharing mathematical stories here in such an extraordinary environment and with wonderful authors. I think the exciting thing is sharing stories, not just with the audience and people at the resorts, but with our fellow authors as well…I think JLF Soneva Fushi has done an extraordinary job of going and sharing stories across the world. We had an amazing festival in the city of Belfast, but I must say this is a very unique place to be having a literary festival at…on an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean

Marcus De SautoyProfessor

JLF has established all the markers for literary festivals in India… it really is the acme of all possibilities… the Maldives, however, is a totally different place. You’ve got, first of all, a much smaller set of audiences by design, you’ve got a very relaxed atmosphere… the whole thing is of the spirit that remains, is the spirit of conversations, of the exchange of ideas, of actually feeling that people who deal with books and ideas matter…and I think that’s what makes this very special.

Shashi Tharoor – Author & Member of Parliament

Well, one of the joys of JLF is to first come and talk about your own work, but the most important thing is to hear other amazing authors talking about theirs… It’s incredible, partly because at Soneva Fushi the ethos is all about not just barefoot luxury, but the slow life…having a chance to think and to be able to listen and to be able to process what you’re hearing. It’s a combination of the two together, JLF and Soneva Fushi and it’s an absolute joy…the things I’ve been listening to the last few days have really stopped me in my tracks and made me think…and that’s what a really good literary festival will do.

Peter FrankopanProfessor of Global History

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