THE 13th edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival will be held in the British Library in London next weekend, bringing together writers, historians, journalists and thinkers from across the world.
The Asian Media Group, publishers of Eastern Eye and Garavi Gujarat newsweeklies, is a media partner for this year’s festival which will be held from June 5 to 7.
Friday (5)’s launch event will mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Agatha Christie. Bestselling crime writer Lucy Foley, Christie’s great-grandson James Prichard, and Lucy Rowland, curator of the British Library’s forthcoming exhibition on Christie, will appear in conversation with journalist and historian Shrabani Basu.
Sanjoy K Roy, managing director of Teamwork Arts, the organisation behind the festival, said JLF had grown into “a vibrant confluence of south Asian literary heritage and global voices”.
This year’s programme reflects “the many layers of our shared world, from crime and myth to geopolitics, history and the evolving language of ideas”.
The programme spans a wide range of themes. A session called Desi Noir will bring together crime writers Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee with Basu to examine the appeal and moral complexity of the genre.
In The Narrative Arc: South of South, novelists Tash Aw and Tahmima Anam will be joined by writer Somnath Batabyal to discuss displacement, resistance and what it means to write from the margins.
In another session, news anchor and author Vishnu Som will discuss his book on India’s Operation Sindoor, The Sky Warriors, with Amit Roy, editor at large at Eastern Eye.
Other prominent participants include political scientist Bruno Maçães, former diplomat Gopalkrishna Gandhi, historian Shruti Kapila, academic Sarah Churchwell, and writers Nikita Gill, Tishani Doshi and Jeet Thayil.
The festival closes on Sunday (7) evening with a separate event featuring historian William Dalrymple and journalist Anita Anand, co-hosts of the popular Empire podcast, in conversation about how the legacy of the British Empire continues to shape global politics, identity and ideas.
