The Jaipur Literature Festival, scheduled to be held in Hotel Clarks Amer from 1-5 February, will be hosting 550 speakers and artists, and will see an inspirational range of linguistic diversity with sessions on 16 Indian and eight international languages.
At a preview of the festival held in New Delhi's The Leela Palace, on 16 January, Namita Gokhale, acclaimed writer and festival Co-Director, said:
“In this, our seventeenth year, we remain committed to the rich diversity of our multilingual literary heritage. We have writers from over twenty-five nationalities. Sixteen Indian languages shall be represented, including those from the evocative oral traditions. We explore a universe of ideas and themes - mathematics to music, camels to cuisine, environment to economics, and fiction to faction.”
William Dalrymple, writer, historian and Festival Co-Director, agreeing with Gokhale, added, "The impressive list includes Paul Lynch, Hernan Diaz, Ben Macintyre, Bonnie Garmus, Richard Osman, Peter Frankopan, Colin Thubron, Mary Beard, Kai Bird, Katie Kitamura, Monica Ali, Nicholas Shakespeare, Damon Galgut, Luke Syon, Katherine Rundell, Merve Emre, Vincent Brown, Amia Srinivasan, Patrick Radden Keefe, Jerry Brotton and many more.”
The curtain-raiser in Delhi saw a magical performance by traditional folk singer Mohd Rafiq Khan Langa.
The preview also highlighted the Jaipur BookMark (JBM), which will run parallel to the festival. In its 11th edition, the focus will be on the business of books, with many sessions featuring key stakeholders from the publishing world.
Highlight Sessions at JBM You Shouldn't Miss
Infinite Horizons: The Landscape of Translation: A conversation between Ranjit Hoskote, Arunava Sinha, Mini Krishnan, and Karthika VK about the reach and impact of books that cross linguistic and cultural borders.
Neenda Kaala Uravu: Literary Friendships that Last: What goes into the making of long-standing literary friendships? Perumal Murugan and Kannan Sundaram reveal in conversation with Vivek Shanbhag.
Ear to the Ground: Evolving Lists of Indian Language Publishers: What Indian languages books are finding greater traction? Hear from Parminder Singh Shonkey, Kannan Sundaram, Gita Ramaswami, Shailesh Bharatwasi, Ravi DC, Esha Chatterjee in conversation with Mita Kapur.
Journeys Across Boundaries: Naveen Kishore, in conversation with Sanjoy Roy, will walk us through the extraordinary journey of Seagull Books.
Digital Dreams: OTT and Publishing: What can publishers do to leverage content, old and new, with the OTT industry? How do they build greater synergy? All this and more will be answered by Sahira Nair, Radhika Gopal, Anish Chandy, Anand Neelakantan in conversation with Ananth Padmanabhan.
Questing for Data: The Nielsen Report and Other Insights: While data on the book market in India remains quite scarce, Vikrant Mathur, Col Yuvraj Malik, Rick Simonson, and Hemali Sodhi will unpack key findings from the Neilsen Report.
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