The festival was founded in 2013 by Jane Heyn, the wife of Mr. Andrew Heyn – British Ambassador to Myanmar at the time and received the patronage of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

The festival usually runs for 2-3 days with discussion panels, workshops and individual talks from the authors, along with a variety of cultural activities: film screenings, photography and art exhibitions and street entertainers.

The Irrawaddy Literary Festival has been covered by global news organisations such as the BBC, CNN, Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the New York Times, and the New York Review of Books.

It has also been rated as one of the world’s best Literary Festivals in the Sunday Times, Time Magazine, Time Out, the South China Morning Post, the book lovers website Novelicious, Asia House and the Festival Sherpa website.

The most recent festival took place from 9–11 November 2019 and was the last under the auspices of the international board.

According to Wikipedia