The Jaipur Literature Festival is all set to happen from January 19 to 23 in Jaipur. In its 16th year, the festival will again be a mix of writers, speakers, thinkers and humanitarians from all walks of life. In a nod to regional languages, the event will include 20 Indian and 14 international languages.
Over 250 speakers, including recipients of the Nobel, the Booker, International Booker, the Pulitzer, the Sahitya Akademi, Baillie Gifford, PEN America Literary Awards, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, the JCB Prize for Literature and many more awards will be present. Topics of debate will range from climate justice, women, translations, poetry, economics, tech morality and artificial intelligence, Russia-Ukraine conflict, violence of the British Empire, cutting-edge science, India at 75, remembering Partition, geopolitics, art and photography, health and medicine.
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Sessions to look forward include Nobel awardee and celebrated writer Abdulrazak Gurnah in conversation with British publishing legend Alexandra Pringle; private diplomat, journalist and author Michael Vatikiotis in conversation with historian and festival co-director William Dalrymple; Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo in conversation with journalist and writer Nandini Nair; Nair will also be in conversation with Booker Prize winning author Shehan Karunatilaka. Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2022 Katherine Rundell will be in conversation with academic and writer Nandini Das; Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Caroline Elkins will take the audience through her illuminating and authoritative book Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire. The festival will also feature acclaimed art historian Katy Hessel for a panel discussion with Xavier Bray on a session named ‘The Story of Art without Men’; Bibek Debroy will be in conversation with Sahitya Akademi awardee and festival co-director Namita Gokhale.
Technology-friendly writers Nandan Nilekani and Tanuj Bhojwani will be in conversation with publisher, Penguin Random House, Meru Gokhale. At another session, Gokhale will be in conversation with philanthropist and writer Sudha Murty, and also Pulitzer prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee.
A panel discussion featuring International Booker Prize winner Geetanjali Shree in conversation with translator Daisy Rockwell and Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar recipient Tanuj Solanki will be a crowd-puller.
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At a festival preview held in the national capital, Namita Gokhale, writer, publisher, and co-director of JLF, said, “The year has been an important landmark in the world recognition of Indian and South Asian literature. Our programme as always forefronts new voices across languages and cultures and spans a wide arc from geopolitics, history, religion and spirituality, prose, poetry and argumentative discourse to planetary concerns, crime-writing, detective fiction and psychological thrillers, appropriately titled ‘Jaipur Noir’. The Jaipur BookMark too returns onground to examine publishing perspectives.”
William Dalrymple, writer, historian, and co-director of Jaipur Literature Festival, said, “Every year we try and raise the bar at the annual Jaipur Literature Festival, but 2023 will undoubtedly be our finest festival yet. We are proud to present almost all the year’s most decorated writers.”
Sanjoy K Roy, managing director of Teamwork Arts, producer of JLF, said, “Jaipur Literature Festival is a platform for spreading considered knowledge and presenting different perspectives on complex issues of our times. As we embark on a new year, we bring to you a stellar line-up that celebrates the power of words.”
