ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival 2019 Speakers unveiled at Delhi Preview
Photo by : Incredible India Info
24-28 January 2019
Set to take place between 24-28 January 2019, the
annual high noon of literature returns to its customary home, Jaipur’s glorious
Diggi Palace Hotel –for its 12th edition. To be followed by its Mumbai preview
on Wednesday, the Festival held its Delhi preview in partnership with the Taj
Group of Hotels at the Taj Mahal Hotel today. A veritable power-house roster of
speakers was unveiled this evening which, like every year, reflects the
diversity of the Festival’s programming in books, themes, subjects, and ideas
representing literature and thoughts intrinsic to both India and the world.
The literary ‘Kumbh’ has hosted nearly 2000
speakers and welcomed over a million booklovers over the past decade,
evolvinginto a global literary spectacle. This year, the Festival will host
over 350 speakers writers, thinkers, politicians, journalists and popular
cultural icons from across a vast array of nationalities, representing several
Indian and international languages as well as major awards such as the Nobel,
the Man Booker, the Pulitzer, the Sahitya Akademi, the JCB Prize for Literature
and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.
The list of speakers features a stellar line-up of
Indian and international names covering issues as kaleidoscopic as the
classics, war, espionage, intelligence, politics, environment and climate
change, women and gender, management and entrepreneurship, technology, along
with broader themes such as mythology, crime science, history, cinema.
On the list are some of the world’s greatest
thinkers and writers: Nobel laureate Venki
Ramakrishnan, President of the Royal Society and author of Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome which unlocks the
mysteries of the gene-reading molecule, one of humanity’s greatest puzzles; Ben Okri, whose Man-Booker-winning The Famished Road, asks the haunting
question “who is the prisoner?â€,and who will get to the heart of his own life
and writing; Colson Whitehead,
author of six novels, versatile columnist for the New York Times, The New
Yorker, New York Magazine, Harper's and Grantaamong others, winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction
and the 2017 Pulitzer for his heart-stopping tour de force, Underground
Railroad; Priyamvada Natarajan,
a cosmologist noted for her work in mapping dark matter, dark energy, and black
holes, a Professor at Yale, and acclaimed author of Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the
Cosmos, whowill take attendees on a tour to “map the heavens†across the greatest cosmological discoveries of
the past century.
The 2019 line-up continues to scintillate minds thirsty for knowledgewith Harvard Professor of History and
Pulitzer finalist Sven Beckert whose
The Empire of Cotton weaves together
the story of cotton with how the present world order, amidst a constant and
complex interplay between slaves and planters, merchants and statesmen, workers
and factory-owners, came to exist while ushering in forces of modern
capitalism; master of the
twist-in-the-tale Jeffery Archer
who will speak
about his extraordinarily dramatic and chequered life, and introduce his
recently-released Heads You Win, a
work of fiction spanning two continents and thirty years. Celebrated British
Nigerian broadcaster and film-maker David
Olusoga will be in conversation with Sir Richard Evans, formerly
Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, as he defends the
role of history as an imperative to our understanding of the way we live; in ‘The World's
War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire’ Olusoga will focus on how Europe's
Great War became the World's War –and discuss the chilling paraphernalia of the
era's racial obsessions which dictated which men would serve, how they would
serve and to what degree they would suffer.
Olusoga will be in conversation with Reni Eddo-Lodge on the latter’s
bestseller Why I'm No Longer Talking to
White People About Race which won the 2018 British Book Awards Non-Fiction
Narrative Book of the Year and sparked a national conversation in Britain on
class and race and their complicated and bloody trail of conflict. Eddo-Lodge
will be in discussion too with Cambridge Professor of Classics, classics editor
of the Times Literary Supplement and
vocal feminist Mary Beard about
history’s flawed positioning of women under the shadow of dominating cultural
misogyny, especially relevant in the aftermath of #MeToo. Beard will
additionally talk of the history of Rome, a civilization and an empire which
was the fulcrum of Western history controlling vast tracts between Spain and
Syria, and laying the foundation for several subsequent realities such as
slavery, citizenship, democracy, religious controversy, migration, with fellow
historian, acclaimed broadcaster, and King’s College Professor Bettany Hughes, whose captivating book
on Istanbul, that feisty and dazzling pastiche of a city rich with history,
conflict and antiquity, will also feature in a discussion at the Festival with
William Dalrymple.
Diplomat Navtej
Sarna in ‘The Post American World’ will elaborate upon how the growth of
India, China, Brazil, Russia and Africa is generating a new landscape and will
soon push the West out of its position of complacence and hegemony to one that
recognises this seismic power shift; Sarna will join Kishwar Desai, author of Jallianwala
Bagh, 1919, among others, to seek the backstory of that fateful day of
April 13, 1919 a century after;writer and columnist Ira Mukhoty, author of Daughters
of the Sun: Empresses, Queens and Begums of the Mughal Empire, will discuss
Nur Jehan and the other indomitable Mughal women who in many ways defined that
era.
A session has been set for ‘Tharoorisms’ where the
prolific Shashi Tharoor will speak
of his personal and political beliefs and his vast oeuvre of work laced with
his characteristic wit.
Australian Professor Darryl Jones, well-known ecologist and naturalist,author of The Birds at My Table, will focus on what is perhaps the modern
world’s most critical crisis: climate change, and the ingenuity required to
reverse its shattering consequences while in another session he will discuss
the fragile balance of human interaction with the other species with whom we
share our planet; Akhil Katyal,
poet, gay-rights activist and candid commentator, will feature in discussions
on our visceral link with our mother-tongues as well as on Poetry Hour, a daily
series of poetry readings. Malayalam author Benyamin whose intense Jasmine
Days won the first JCB Prize for Literature and follows the story of the
Arab Spring, examining love, loyalty, friendship, family, life and death along
the way, will speak of the writing process in depth.
The ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival is supported and partnered by brands as much
for its position as a pioneer amongst Literature festivals, as for its
intrinsic value of providing an unbiased, democratic platform for diverse
voices. Many of these partnerships are long-term, helping the Festival grow in
scope and scale - ZEE Entertainment, Bank of Baroda and the Aga Khan
Foundation, are a few such partnerships. Associations with brands that are
at the forefront of innovation in the industry they belong to, help grow the
stature of the Festival. The Festival is proud to be associated for the first
time with JCB Prize for Literature
- an Indian literary award established this year
to recognise distinguished work of fiction by an Indian writer working in
English or translated fiction by an Indian writer.
The incredible reach of the Festival also helps in
the amplification of the path-breaking work being done by organisations
like Population Foundation of India and Child Labour Free Jaipur, which
are devoted to social causes, even as they reaffirm values the Festival stands
for.
In an innovative
partnership called Jaipur Writers Shorts, Teamwork Arts, producers of the ZEE
Jaipur Literature Festival, has teamed up with Hotstar, to showcase a
cross-section of Festival conversations from 2018 as an endeavour to deliver in
short, succinct and intense 12-minute digital capsules, the exhilaration of
literature and dialogue to a wider audience base, who have been unable to
attend the Festival in person or want to reflect upon the lived experience
later. The Jaipur Writers Shorts are available on the free-to-access Hotstar
platform, bringing the gift of literature to one and all, much like the
Festival! The episodes cover award-winning authors discussing ideas across
genres, books and issues of national and international relevance.
The Jaipur Music Stage, which runs parallel to the
Festival, celebrates “all things musicâ€, with a variety of music genres coming
together along with exciting collaborations between diverse artistes, and opens
up a world of musical discovery. Apart from electrifying evenings of
performances, the Music Stage will also feature workshops, masterclasses, talks
and sessions, giving music-lovers a chance to interact with musicians, learn
more about instruments and nuances within musical genres. The 2019 line-up of
the Stage has unveiled some of its headliners including the earthy and soulful
Nooran Sisters; leading Carnatic and world music vocalist Mahesh Vinayakram in
collaboration with Dub FX (Benjamin Stanford),
an unbelievably gifted street musician who creates powerful music with just his
voice, synthesisers and loop machines. The ever-popular and effervescent
Punjabi folk singer JasbirJassi will also be part of never-seen-before
collaboration with Kutle Khan, sublime reinventor of Rajasthani folk. More details on the programming are expected to be revealed soon.
The Festival’s B2B arm, Jaipur BookMark (JBM),
supported by governments of many countries as well as Indian and global
publishers such as The Seagull School of
Publishing, The Royal Norwegian Embassy, the Sahitya Academy, is now in its
sixth edition, and remains a key platform for publishers, literary agents,
translation agencies and writers wanting to talk business along with focussed
sessions and major industry players from across the world. The 2019 edition
features key industry stakeholders and heavyweights such as CEO of Harper
Collins India, Ananth Padmanabhan;
Westland Managing Editor Karthika VK; international copyright
expert Michael Healy; Seagull publisher Naveen Kishore; Frankfurt Bookfair
CEO and President Juergen Boos; Iconic Feminist Publisher of Zubaan Books,
Urvashi Butalia; Senior Vice President, Penguin Random House, Nandan Jha; and
Vani Prakashan's Aditi Maheshwari Goyal.
Speaking on the occasion of today’s preview, author and Festival Co-Director Namita
Gokhale said, “The ZEE Jaipur
Literature Festival has, through the last decade, helped articulate and foster
a unique literary and creative culture across the world. Our programme
remains determinedly diverse and multilingual, with over sixteen Indian
languages, twelve International languages, and almost thirty nationalities
represented at Jaipur this January.
The 2019
edition has a special emphasis on the importance of Science, on Genetics,
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Artificial Intelligence, and what the future holds
for the planet. We also explore music, poetry and the arts, and delve into
fiction, short stories, adaptations and translations. We examine different
facets of myth, memory and religion. We interrogate rural distress, think aloud
about migration and identity, and reflect on the ongoing struggles for gender
equity, from the landmark judgement on section 377 to the tumultuous watershed
of the #metoo movement.
We look forward
to seeing you in Jaipur this coming January as we set off on another rewarding
pilgrimage of the mind and spirit.â€
Writer and Festival Co-Director William Dalrymple said, “I am thrilled to launch our line-up in Delhi. The
audiences that come to the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival always contain a
large number of Delhi literature-lovers and our list of star writers is always
full of Delhi literati. We hope to see more Delhi wallahs than ever at the ZEE
Jaipur Literature Festival 2019 and I look forward to welcoming them at the
Diggi Palace in January.â€
Sanjoy K. Roy, Managing Director of Teamwork Arts, producers of the ZEE
Jaipur Literature Festival, said, “The
annual ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival brings the world to India and takes India
to the world. Over 300 speakers covering a range of topics will converge on one
of the loveliest heritage cities in the world weaving stories of hope and
resilience, love and betrayal. A veritable celebration of the written word!â€
Mr. Satyajeet Krishnan, Area
Director, North and General Manager, Taj Mahal, New Delhi said,
“Taj Mahal, New Delhi is privileged to continue its association with
the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival for the fifth year in a row to present an
exclusive glimpse of the much awaited annual event. The Hotel has been a
purveyor of art, culture, heritage and timeless traditions for four decades now
and we are delighted to collaborate with Teamwork Arts to offer a sneak peek
into the country’s most popular literary festival. With some of India’s
finest literary minds coming together for the engaging Curtain Raiser at the
iconic Taj Mahal, we are sure it will be a memorable evening with meaningful
conversations and soulful performances inspired by elements of the ‘Pink City’
and our rich cultural heritage.â€
The Delhi Curtain Raiser featured a spectacular
performance by India’s most celebrated qawwali singers, the Qutbi Brothers, and
a panel discussion: ‘The First Draft of History: The Perils of Journalism’ with
Saba Naqvi, Suhasini Haider, Jeffrey Gettlemen, Nikhil Kumar
and Neelesh Misra which was moderated by Swati Chaturvedi. The Mumbai
Curtain Raiser is slated for December 5 in partnership with Avid Learning at
the Royal Opera House where the Festival programme will be unveiled.
With previews as exciting as these, there’s much to be expected from the upcoming edition of the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival. Book-lovers, globe-trotters, backpackers, vacationers, students and ideas-seekers are perhaps indistinguishable in their wait for the world’s definitive annual marathon of books to begin.
Described as the ‘greatest literary show on Earth’, the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival is a sumptuous feast of ideas.
The past
decade has seen it transform into a global literary phenomenon having hosted
nearly 2000 speakers and welcoming over a million book lovers from across India
and the globe.
The
Festival’s core values remain unchanged: to serve as a democratic, non-aligned
platform offering free and fair access.
Every
year, the Festival brings together a diverse mix of the world’s greatest writers,
thinkers, humanitarians, politicians, business leaders, sports people and
entertainers on one stage to champion the freedom to express and engage in
thoughtful debate and dialogue.
Writers
and Festival Directors Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple, alongside
producers Teamwork Arts, invite speakers to take part in the five-day programme
set against the backdrop of Rajasthan’s stunning cultural heritage and the
Diggi Palace in the state capital Jaipur.
Past
speakers have ranged from Nobel Laureates J.M. Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk and
Muhammad Yunus, Man Booker Prize winners Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood and Paul
Beatty, Sahitya Akademi winners Girish Karnad, Gulzar, Javed Akhtar, M.T.
Vasudevan Nair as well as the late Mahasweta Devi and U.R. Ananthamurthy along
with literary superstars including Amish Tripathi, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and
Vikram Seth. An annual event that goes beyond literature, the Festival has also
hosted Amartya Sen, Amitabh Bachchan, the late A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, His Holiness
the 14th Dalai Lama, Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Fry, Thomas Piketty and former
president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai.
The ZEE
Jaipur Literature Festival is a flagship event of Teamwork Arts, which produces
it along with over 25 highly acclaimed performing arts, visual arts and
literary festivals across more than 40 cities globally.
Over the
years, Teamwork Arts has produced ZEE JLF at The British Library, ZEE JLF at
Boulder, JLF at Houston, JLF at New York and JLF in Adelaide.
For over
25 years, Teamwork Arts has taken India to the world and brought the world to
India.
In
countries such as Australia, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy,
Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, UK and USA, Teamwork produces over 25
highly acclaimed performing arts, visual arts and literary festivals across
more than 40 cities.
Teamwork
Arts produces one of the world’s largest literary gatherings, the annual ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, the Ishara International Puppet Festival and the annual Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) and Festival in New Delhi, international festivals Shared History in South Africa, Eye on India in the United States of America, India by the Bay in Hong Kong, Confluence - Festival of India in Australia, India@70 2017: Year of Culture in the United Kingdom, and many more.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Festival Speakers announced - The Festival announced its line-up of over 350 speakers including
Akhil Katyal, Ben Okri, Benyamin, Bettany Hughes, Colson Whitehead, Darryl
Jones, David Olusuga, Ira Mukhoty, Jeffery Archer, Mary Beard, Navtej
Sarna, Priyamvada Natarajan, Reni Eddo Lodge, Shashi Tharoor, Sven Beckert
and Venki Ramakrishnan.
- Jaipur Music Stage – With discovery, variety and
collaboration at the heart of its programming, the Jaipur Music Stage
announced its headliners including DubFX, JasbirJassi, Kutle Khan, Nooran
Sisters.
· Jaipur Writers Shorts - Teamwork Arts announced the Jaipur Writers Shorts, in partnership with Hotstar, featuring 75 exciting episodes on conversations from the 2018 edition of the Festival airing on its free to access platform.
- Jaipur BookMark – The B2B arm of the Festival, Jaipur BookMark (JBM) unveiled its
list of close to 100 speakers for its 6th edition including Ananth
Padmanabhan, Juergen Boos, Karthika VK, Michael Healy, Nandan Jha, Naveen
Kishore and Urvashi Butalia.
- Delhi Preview of the Festival featured a panel discussion on The First Draft of History : The Perils of Journalism with Saba Naqvi, Suhasini Haider, Jeffrey Gettlemen, Nikhil Kumar and Neelesh Misra, moderated by Swati Chaturvedi and an exhilarating performance by the Qutbi Brothers Qawwals.
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