Teamwork Arts, the producer of the iconic Jaipur Literature Festival, launched JLF Brave New World a few months ago, as the world went into lockdown grappling with a global pandemic. JLF Brave New World celebrates the power of literature in bringing together communities, a vital need in the de-globalised world created by Covid-19. Since its inception in April, the series has come a long way in a mere four months, witnessing some of the best conversations of current times with a diverse range of speakers. The series will soon celebrate its 100th milestone episode on Wednesday, 29th July 2020, with an extended celebratory evening featuring leading contemporary authors and speakers.
In this special episode, Man Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders will share insights into the mosaic of his prolific life and genre-bending body of work. In conversation with writer Amitava Kumar, Saunders, the master of modern fiction, will discuss the state of contemporary literature, its relation with power and politics, and the place held by darkness and kindness in stories.
The following episodes on Friday and Saturday will feature speakers like Stephen Fry, Bapsi Sidhwa, Urvashi Butalia, Carl Miller, Paulo Lemos Horta, etc.
Stephen Fry is one of the world's best-known actors and comedians. But when he arrived at Cambridge, he was a convicted thief, an addict with a failed suicide attempt, and convinced that he would be expelled. Instead, university life offered him love and the chance to entertain. He befriended bright young things like Hugh Laurie and actress Emma Thompson. On Friday, Fry talks about his life and work with Mint Lounge editor Anindita Ghose as he tells the hilarious and compelling story of how he took his first step in the worlds of theatre, radio, television and film.
The next session will feature celebrated Zoroastrian novelist Bapsi Sidhwa speaking to writer and feminist publisher Urvashi Butalia about her creative journey across cultures, continents and chronicles, and what she calls her ‘Punjabi-Pakistani -Parsi’ roots. Her novels ‘Ice Candy Man’ and ‘Water: A Novel’ were adapted by Deepa Mehta for acclaimed films like ‘Earth’ and ‘Water’. A biopic - ‘Bapsi: The Silences of My Life’ - is currently in production.
Multinational corporations are being shut overnight with a single tweet, Facebook has grown bigger than any state, robots are battling for elections, coders and hackers are writing policies, and algorithms are shaping our lives in more than unimaginable ways. On Saturday, Carl Miller, co-founder of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media and author of the Transmission Prize-winning ‘The Death of the Gods’ that analyses the trajectory of power in the digital age, delves into how this power is indeed being transformed, fought over, lost and won in the digital medium, at this timely and incisive session.
Writer and translator Paulo Lemos Horta has written on the cultural and literary history of the ‘Arabian Nights’ and of the travellers, translators and storytellers who gave the world these unforgettable tales in his ‘Marvellous Thieves: Secret Authors of the Arabian Nights’ and Aladdin: A New Translation’. In ‘Aladdin’, Horta takes us on a dazzling journey, interweaving and reinventing the dark themes and enchanting whimsy of a classic that has transfixed us for ages. In conversation with Jaipur Literature Festival & JLF producer Sanjoy K. Roy at the week’s concluding session, Horta speaks of the stories, along with the stories behind the stories, to provide a fascinating glimpse of the great cultural reservoir of Arabic, Persian and Indian narratives.
Sessions at JLF Brave New World include conversations with speakers as well as Q&A picked from social media channels where audiences can submit questions and share comments with their favorite speakers. The full archive of past sessions, as well as a list of upcoming sessions of the series, can be accessed via the #JLFLitfest social media pages on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
About JLF Brave New World:
These are strange and unsettling times. The extraordinary Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted us in every way and made us distance ourselves physically from one another while finding resilience in the invaluable ties which connect us to one another.
Book-lovers are never truly alone. We’re certainly never lonely, not when we have books, and certainly not when we have each other.
We, at the Jaipur Literature Festival, have always believed in the spirit of community. We believe that these challenging times are also the moments in which we need to interrogate and make sense of our world through books and ideas, debate and dialogue, music and philosophy, science and the arts. The festival, which has always been a platform that celebrates the spirit of human connection, is now ready to go straight into the hearts and minds and homes.
We are privileged to present ‘JLF presents Brave New World’, an online literature series in which the sprawling grounds of Diggi Palace are replaced by the boundless possibilities of the Internet. In short, our digital platform is your virtual stage.
Reading gives us strength, inspires and instils new hope. The iconic Jaipur Literature Festival, the "greatest literary show on Earth" embodies the power of the word and the spirit of connection. For over 13 years, the Festival has connected thousands through the universal language of literature.
We need now, more than ever before, to keep alive a free-flowing exchange of thoughts and ideas, nurture and keep open partnerships and literary connections. So, let the words flow and the ideas come as you tune in from your homes and join our stellar list of speakers and authors.
About Jaipur Literature Festival:
Described as the ‘greatest literary show on Earth’, the Jaipur Literature Festival is a sumptuous feast of ideas.
The past decade has seen it transform into a global literary phenomenon having hosted nearly 2000 speakers and welcoming over a million book lovers from across India and the globe.
Our core values remain unchanged: to serve as a democratic, non-aligned platform offering free and fair access.
Every year, the Festival brings together a diverse mix of the world’s greatest writers, thinkers, humanitarians, politicians, business leaders, sports people and entertainers on one stage to champion the freedom to express and engage in thoughtful debate and dialogue.
Writers and Festival Directors Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple, alongside producer Teamwork Arts, invite speakers to take part in the five-day programme set against the backdrop of Rajasthan’s stunning cultural heritage and the Diggi Palace in the state capital Jaipur.
Past speakers have ranged from Nobel Laureates J.M. Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk and Muhammad Yunus, Man Booker Prize winners Ben Okri, Margaret Atwood and Paul Beatty, Sahitya Akademi winners Gulzar, Javed Akhtar, M.T. Vasudevan Nair as well as the late Girish Karnad, Mahasweta Devi and U.R. Ananthamurthy along with literary superstars including Amish Tripathi, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Vikram Seth. An annual event that goes beyond literature, the Festival has also hosted Amartya Sen, Amitabh Bachchan, the late A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Fry, Thomas Piketty and former president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai.
The Jaipur Literature Festival is a flagship event of Teamwork Arts, which produces it along with over 25 highly acclaimed performing arts, visual arts and literary festivals across more than 40 cities globally.
Website: www.
About Teamwork Arts:
For over 30 years, Teamwork Arts has taken India to the world and brought the world to India, presenting the finest of Indian performers, writers and visual artists in the cultural and art space in India and abroad.
Every year, we produce over 25 performing, visual arts and literary festivals in several countries including Australia, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, the UK and USA as well as many eclectic festivals across India. We produce the world's largest literary gathering: the annual Jaipur Literature Festival; JLF international now travels to the US, UK, Canada, Qatar and Australia and we have recently launched a digital series - JLF Brave New World. Our musical extravaganza, Bollywood Love Story - A Musical, continues to tour the world with sold-out shows everywhere it is held.
Website: www.teamworkarts.com
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