Jaipur Literature Festival 2023: The 16th Edition Of The Festival Will Feature Women Of Substance And Their Exemplary Work

The iconic Jaipur Literature Festival, which will be held from 19th-23rd January, will be showcasing a range of women writers and their exemplary works.

The iconic Jaipur Literature Festival is all set to return for its 16th edition. It will be held from 19th-23rd January, 2023, at Hotel Clarks Amer, Jaipur, with ABP Live as a media partner. The Festival will be showcasing a range of women writers and their exemplary works!

A session featuring Emily Perkins, Eugenia Kuznetsova, Ana Filomena Amaral, Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin, and Saskya Jain will focus on how an author captures the life of a woman in a piece of writing. The panel will talk about the political and social implications of writing with a feminine perspective.

Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo will also be speaking at the Festival. Her memoir, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up, is an inspirational account of her life and career as she rebelled against the mainstream to bring her creative work into the world. In conversation with journalist and writer Nandini Nair, Evaristo will present her reimagined memoir and an essential manual for creativity, activism, and reinvention.

In another session, social activist and noted writer Sudha Murty will interact with Meru Gokhale, the former Editor-in-Chief of Penguin Random House India. Murthy will present a pragmatic worldview that is nevertheless based on compassion and empathy.

Jaipur Literature Festival 2023 will also feature a session with International Booker Prize winner Geetanjali Shree, along with translator Daisy Rockwell, in conversation with Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar winner Tanuj Solanki. The conversation will focus on Shree’s original novel that presents a viewpoint on the Partition through an octogenarian protagonist.

A session with author, publisher and Festival Co-Director Namita Gokhale will shed light on how her life has been woven around books — both her own and those written by others. She will be in conversation with journalist Mandira Nayar.

Author and well known actress Deepti Naval will also be speaking at the Festival. She will be in conversation with philanthropist and entrepreneur Surina Narula. The discussion will be centred on Naval’s memoir,  A Country Called Childhood.

Here are some of the other sessions that will be taking place at Jaipur Literature Festival 2023:

* Author Alka Saraogi and Sahitya Akademi Award recipient Anamika, two luminaries from Hindi literature, will be in conversation with journalist Nishtha Gautam.

* In conversation with author Sathya Saran, pop icon Usha Uthup and her biographer Vikas Kumar Jha will discuss music, memories and milestones. Jha has written an evocative Hindi biography of the singer titled The Queen of Indian Pop, which has been translated into English by his daughter, Srishti Jha. 

* In a session entitled ‘Lata ji - A Life In Music’, celebrated poet, music and cinema scholar Yatindra Mishra will be in conversation with translator and writer Anu Singh Choudhary. Mishra’s book Lata: Sur Gatha is a fascinating portrait of the legend with a singular passion for excellence in music. The book originally published in Hindi was translated into English by Ira Pande.

* Award-winning author Kishwar Desai will be in conversation with bureaucrat and IRS officer Nirupama Kotru. The session will focus on Desai’s book The Longest Kiss: The Life and Times of Devika Rani. The conversation will chart the fascinating life and career of India’s first international superstar, Devika Rani. 

* Celebrated writer and academic Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni will be in conversation with writer and oral historian Aanchal Malhotra. They will discuss Divakaruni’s novel Independence, which focuses on a tale of three sisters and their experience of the Partition of 1947. 

* A Jaipur BookMark session, in collaboration with the Women Translating Women initiative of the Ashoka Centre for Translation, will host a panel discussion with feminist writer, translator and co-founder of Zubaan, Urvashi Butalia, and multilingual scholar, translator and Professor of English at Ashoka University, Rita Kothari, in conversation with publisher and translation consultant Neeta Gupta.

* A session titled ‘Women and Work’ will feature authors Shaili Chopra, Minnie Vaid and former IFS officer and Ambassador Lakshmi Puri in conversation with the UN Women Country Representative Susan Ferguson. 

* Art historian and curator Katy Hessel, who is pioneering a corrective to dismantle the long reign of men in the art scene, will be in conversation with art historian Xavier Bray discussing the historical documentation of art and her attempts at dismantling patriarchy within the art world.

* Another session will see internationally bestselling historian Katie Hickman, author of Brave Hearted: The Women of the American West, in conversation with author Bee Rowlatt.  Hickman will discuss the women of the American West and their reservoir of courage and resilience in the face of life-threatening change.

* Shrabani Basu, author of Spy Princess: The Story of Noor Inayat Khan, and Rick Stroud, author of Lonely Courage, will be in conversation to discuss the eventful life of Noor Inaayat Khan, a descendant of Tipu Sultan, who was the only Asian secret agent in Europe in World War II, and the first woman wireless operator to be flown into occupied France during the War.

* A session will feature award-winning journalist and author Nilanjana Bhowmick and Deputy Country Representative, UN Women India, Kanta Singh, for a discussion on the former’s recent book, Lies Our Mothers Told Us: The Indian Woman’s Burden. 

Register for the Jaipur Literature Festival to attend by clicking this link - https://jaipurliteraturefestival.org/