New Delhi– The ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival 2017 will touch upon a multitude of ideas and themes, its organisers announced here.
These include ‘Freedom to Dream – India at 70’ to explores India today in the context of its history as well as its future; Translations and World Literature; Women and Marginalised Voices; Sanskrit and Colonialism; and the Legacy of the Raj, festival’s co-directors Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple said.
An evening of dramatic readings and music in the national capital marked the countdown to the 10th edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival, scheduled to be held from January 19 to 23 next year.
With around 30 languages represented at the festival, authors writing in Indian regional languages and slated to feature are Volga in Telugu, S.L. Bhyrappa and Vivek Shanbhag in Kannada, Kaajal Oza Vaidya in Gujarati, C.P. Deval and Hari Ram Meena in Rajasthani, Kanak Dixit and Binod Chaudhary in Nepali, Dhrubajyoti Bora in Assamese, and Gulzar and Javed Akhtar in Urdu, among others.
Writers in Hindi include Ajay Navaria, Anu Singh Choudhary, Manav Kaul, Mrinal Pande, Narendra Kohli and Yatindra Mishra.
“This festival is more multi-lingual than ever before, with about 30 languages to be represented there. Translation is a key focus and a variety of strands and themes including the Constitution, the Magna Carta, Sanskrit, the movements from the margins to the centre, ideals, ideologies, realpolitik, as well as the freedom of dreaming and imagination,” Gokhale said.
International writers include Man Booker Prize winners Alan Hollinghurst and Richard Flanagan; NoViolet Bulawayo, the first black African woman to be shortlisted for Man Booker Prize in 2013; Laurence Olivier award winner and two-time Academy Award nominee Sir David Hare, who makes his first visit to the festival; internationally acclaimed poet Anne Waldman and American Journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning Dexter Filkins.
Writer William Dalrymple said: “It’s been an extraordinary journey from 16 attendees 10 years ago… on the way, we have brought many of the world’s greatest writers to India and showcased Indian writing to the world. We have ignited a million minds to the wonders of literature. This year will be our most irresistible spread of literary genius yet.”
The evening featured a programme of music and words titled ‘Bhakti: Resilience, Resistance and Resonance’.
Musical performances with powerful dramatic readings and translated renditions were performed by Arundhati Subramanian, Harpreet Singh, H.S. Shivprakash and Parvathy Baul. (IANS)
