Jaipur Literature Festival 2023 Unveils Full Programme At Delhi Preview

The annual iconic Jaipur Literature Festival is all set to run from 19th-23rd January in the pink city of Jaipur at Hotel Clarks Amer. Marking its sixteenth year, the festival will showcase a power-house of writers, speakers, thinkers and humanitarians from all walks of life. The literary extravaganza will see a spectacular range of language diversity in the programme, displaying 20 Indian and 14 International languages. 

For its 2023 edition, the festival will host over 250 speakers from across a vast array of nationalities, as well as recipients of major awards such as 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.

Announced on Tuesday, 13th December 2022, the list has some of the world’s greatest minds including Nobel awardee and celebrated writer Abdulrazak Gurnah in conversation with British publishing legend Alexandra Pringle for a panel discussion titled ‘The Essential Abdulrazak Gurnah’. Gurnah’s striking and formidable works include Memory of Departure, Pilgrims Way, Dottie, Paradise, By the Sea, Desertion, and his most recent, Afterlives, which examines the German colonial force in East Africa and the lives of Tanganyikans - as they, work, grieve, and love - in the darkening shadow of war. 

It will feature a range of themes including the ongoing climate justice debate under the urgency of borrowed time theme; the great women writers and artists focusing on the female voice and identity, crime fiction, memoir, translation, poetry, economics, tech morality and Artificial Intelligence, the global crisis in agriculture, Russia-Ukraine conflict, violence of the British Empire, cutting-edge science, India at 75, remembering partition, geopolitics, art and photography, health and medicine, amongst others.

In a tale celebrating the pluralist past of the Middle East, private diplomat, journalist and author Michael Vatikiotis traces the history of his family caught between a clash of faith and identity. Lives Between Lines recounts life under the Ottoman Empire where communities from different creeds and origins thrived. Lasting almost a century, the Ottoman oasis was disrupted by the European colonial order that caused violent conflict between the Arabs and the Jews of the region. For his session, Vatikiotis will be in conversation with historian and Festival Co-Director William Dalrymple, where the two will take the audience through the history of his forebears as an ode to the once-tolerant and harmonious Middle East.

At the Festival, Evaristo will be in conversation with journalist and writer, Nandini Nair where she will present her reimagined memoir and an essential manual for creativity, activism, and reinvention. 

While moderating another session at the Festival, Nair will be in conversation with the Booker Prize winning author Shehan Karunatilaka for a panel discussion on ‘Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ where Karunatilaka will delve into his latest tale of pathos, humour and satire, and the grave dangers of collective amnesia.

 At another session, the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2022, Katherine Rundell will be in conversation with academic and writer Nandini Das, where Rundell will speak of her sparkling biography of John Donne: the poet of love, sex, and death.

The list continues with the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Caroline Elkins for a panel discussion where Elkins will take the audience through her illuminating and authoritative book Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire. During the session, Elkins will explode long-held myths and shed disturbing new light on the empire's role in shaping the world today. 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’, where Hessel will discuss the historical documentation of art and her attempts at dismantling patriarchy within the art world. 

Bibek Debroy is scholar and translator will be in conversation with Sahitya Akademi awardee and Festival Co-Director Namita Gokhale, talking about the intricate layers of wisdom and learning contained in the Puranas, with special reference to his latest rendering of the Brahma Puranas in English translation. 

During one of the key sessions at the festival, three experts of agrarian studies, scholar and writer Maryam Aslany and academic Surinder S. Jodhka will be in conversation with Mukulika Banerjee, delving deeper into the causes and consequences of the situation and the complex and acute tragedy of farmer suicides.

At a session, journalist and author Manoj Joshi, in Understanding the India-China Border: The Enduring Threat of War in the High Himalayas, will trace the brutal circumstances of the LAC and the impact of its “fuzziness”. During the session, Joshi will be in conversation with former Foreign 

Secretary Vijay Gokhale and former Ambassador to China, Myanmar, Indonesia and Nepal & former Foriegn Secretary Shyam Saran discussing the rising tensions at the unresolved LAC, and what that means for the region, along with journalist and foreign policy expert Suhasini Haidar. 

Speaking on the occasion of preview, Namita Gokhale, writer, publisher, and Co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival, said, “2022 has been an important landmark in the world recognition of Indian and South Asian literature. International Booker prize winner Geetanjali Shree, and her English translator Daisy Rockwell will join us, as will Sri Lankan author & Booker winner Shehan Karunatilaka. We are deeply honoured to have Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah and so many other international and Sahitya Akademi awardees.” 

Writer and oral historian Aanchal Malhotra's debut book, Remnants of a Separation, is a human history of the monumental event of the Partition of India, told by unearthing the stories lying latent in ordinary objects that the survivors had carried with them across the newly made border. Her recent, In the Language of Remembering, brings together conversations recorded over many years with generations of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and their respective diaspora. At a session, Malhotra will be in conversation with the author of Partition Voices, Kavita Puri, where she reveals how the Partition is not yet an event of the past and its legacy is threaded into the daily lives of subsequent generations.  

William Dalrymple, writer, historian and Co-director of the 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: we have the winners of the Nobel, Booker, Sahitya Akademi, Baillie Gifford, National Book Awards & Women's Prize. We have brought together the world's greatest novelists & poets, historians and biographers, scientists & economists, artists & art historians.” 

Sanjoy K. Roy, Managing Director of Teamwork Arts, producer of the Jaipur Literature Festival, said, “Jaipur Literature Festival is a platform for spreading considered knowledge and presenting different perspectives on complex issues of our times. In 2023, the festival will focus on themes such as climate crisis, geopolitics, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Indo-China relations, agriculture, and energy.”