VS Naipaul, Eleanor Catton to attend Zee Jaipur Literature Festival

The eighth edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival here will see heavyweights of the likes of  Nobel Laureate VS Naipaul, Man Booker prize winner Eleanor Catton, novelist Hanif Kureishi as well as travel writer Paul Theroux.

A total of 77 authors are set to take part in the annual literary extravaganza scheduled in the Pink City from January 21-25 in 2015.

Prominent Hindi poet Kedarnath Singh, current Booker Prize nominee Neel Mukherjee, best-selling novelist Amish Tripathi and celebrated author and translator Arshia Sattar, as well as children's author Cornelia Funke are among participants.

Emphasis on poetry, as well as celebrating South Asia through all genres of writing, say organisers would set tone for the upcoming Jaipur Literature Festival.

A strand of sessions would showcase and celebrate the rich literature of the seven sister states of the North-East.

“Following on from the popular theme of 'Crime and Punishment' from last year, this January’s festival will look at writing associated with ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’, as well as continuing a second strand of celebrated Women Uninterrupted series,” said JLF sources.

Following its debut this year, the Jaipur BookMark, a business to business platform is again set for two days from January 21. The platform offers a place for the global publishing community to come together and discuss issues and challenges faced by the industry, as well as the country’s rapidly changing digital and print publishing landscape.

Hindi writer Vinod Kumar Shukla, Bangla writer Sangeeta Bandopadhyay, Marathi Dalit woman writer Urmila Pawar and the dramatist Girish Karnad are all scheduled to attend the Fest.

The festival programme includes Hindi, Urdu, Rajasthani, Marathi, Manipuri, Kannadiga, Telugu, Tamil, Sanskrit, Punjabi and Pali writers with more to be announced soon, organisers said.

“This may well be one of the strongest international lists we’ve ever fielded at Jaipur with several writers have been chasing for almost a decade,” says William Dalrymple, writer and co-director of the festival.

Nicholson Baker, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Elizabeth Gilbert, Paul Theroux, Eleanor Catton, Kate Summerscale and Alberto Manguel are some of the authors, Dalrymple lists outs.

Major themes, he says, include meltdown in Middle East and Afpak, spies, historical fiction, alternative sexualities, memoir writing, cricket writing, as well as writing about politics, pirates, natural history and life cycle of the honey bee!

“I can't wait.. it is going to be our best year yet,” says Dalrymple.