JLF announces themes at the curtain raiser

The highly-anticipated curtain raiser was packed with publishers, authors and supporters of the festival, media and the literati. With the burning issue of the day being the need for constructive dialogue, the buzz of ideas and anticipation was palpable.

The list of speakers slated to attend the Festival in January are India’s most beloved and prolific storyteller Ruskin Bond; this year’s Man Booker Prize winner Marlon James; India’s most celebrated psychoanalyst and author Sudhir Kakar; Stephen Fry, one of the world’s best known actors and comedians; Hindi journalist, poet and novelist Uday Prakash, one of the leading figures in modern Indian literature; Colm Toibin, Ireland’s greatest living writer; poet, novelist and essayist Margaret Atwood; French economist and global voice on wealth and income inequality Thomas Piketty; creator of one of the landmarks of modern American literature Tales of the City Armistead Maupin; and activist and writer Bant Singh, whose tragic and inspiring story of resistance to the atrocities he suffered as a Dalit Indian is a story of empowerment as well as a mirror to the fault lines in a still feudal society.

This year’s edition will touch upon a multitude of ideas and themes including the age old, yet highly topical issue of Migration in the Chronicles of Exile – a session that examines alienation and acceptance, across political, cultural and geographical landscapes; and in Manto and the Pity of Partition which recounts one of the greatest migrations of human history through the works of Saadat Hasan Manto, arguably one of the greatest chroniclers of the trauma of Partition.

Highlighting the dynamics of the rapidly changing world around us will be panels and sessions around Navigating Modernity as societies, customs, traditions and knowledge systems stand at a crossroads with modernity and development. Sessions include Mera Gaon Mera Desh on how the rural idyll gives way to dysfunctional urbanities; Parivaar, Parampara aur Parivartan with narratives of continuity and change within family and societal structures; Ancient Indian Knowledge Systems which explores the universe of ideas that can still be glimpsed through ancient manuscripts, archaeology and myth; and Navigating Modernity - a panel that looks at the ambiguous and conflicted politics of change.

Other themes will include Environment, Conflict and the Middle East, Oral Traditions and Poetry, Translation and Bilingualities, Travel Writing¸ War-Front Reporting, Mythology, History and Art, Literature of Business and Economics, Sports, Science, Health and Mental Health.