Ubud Writers and Readers Festival

The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF) has grown since its founding in 2004 to become one of Asia’s most significant and beloved literary gatherings — a five-day celebration of books, ideas, and storytelling that draws over 200 authors, poets, academics, and thinkers from across the globe to the cultural capital of Bali.

The festival was born directly from the aftermath of the 2002 Bali bombings, when founder Janet DeNeefe decided to create an event that would celebrate Bali’s culture while helping to restore the international literary community’s connection with the island. The result has exceeded every expectation: today the UWRF attracts Nobel Prize winners, Booker Prize recipients, Man Booker Prize laureates, and celebrated writers from across every genre and tradition, alongside the most compelling voices from Indonesian and Southeast Asian literature.

The programme unfolds across multiple venues in Ubud: intimate garden pavilions for workshops, the grand stages of the Ubud Royal Palace for major literary debates, riverside cafes for informal conversations, and the streets of Ubud itself for literary walks and performances. Over 200 events take place during the five days, covering fiction, poetry, food writing, environmental literature, graphic novels, children’s books, politics, and creative non-fiction.

The Indonesian literary content is particularly rich — writers working in Bahasa Indonesia, Balinese, Javanese, and dozens of regional languages address the extraordinary cultural complexity of the world’s largest archipelago nation. For visitors, this is a rare window into Indonesian intellectual life that goes far beyond the usual tourist experience.

Evening performances, literary dinners, and spontaneous conversations in Ubud’s cafes and restaurants extend the festival experience long past the official programme each day.