9.01.2013 | New Delhi
The sixth annual DSC Jaipur Literature Festival has been scheduled from 24th to 28th January, 2013, at Diggi Palace in Jaipur. The five-day festival will encompass a wide range of activities including debates, discussions, readings, music, and workshops for the audiences.
The surge of national solidarity on women’s issues finds echoes and resonances at the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival 2013. Poems, stories, readings, and panels discuss the multifaceted experience of being a woman, and the search for gender equity and justice.
Acclaimed women writers attending the festival include the legendary Diana Eck, the leading Arab novelist Ahdaf Soueif, Aminatta Forna, Anamika, Damayanti Beshra, Jaishree Misra, Deborah Moggach, Elif Batuman, Fahmida Riaz, Ameena Saiyid, Gagan Gill, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Ilina Sen, Ira Pande, Kota Neelima, Kunzang Choden, Kishwar Desai, Kshama Sharma, Lakshmi Holmstrom, Laleh Khadivi, Madeline Miller, Nasreen Munni Kabir, Nayanjot Lahiri, Nirupama Dutt, Rohini Nilekani, Selma Dabbagh, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoi, Sharmila Tagore, Shobhaa De, Smita Tewari Jassal, Sudha Gopalakrishnan, Syeda Hameed, Tania James, Tishani Doshi, Vayu Naidu, Vibha Rani and Yiyun Li
The keynote address “O to live again!” will be delivered by the iconic voice of human rights and women’s consciousness Mahasweta Devi. This will set the tone for various sessions where women and men will interrogate gender issues and raise the crucial subject of equity and inclusion in languages including in English, Hindi, Rajasthani, Tamil and Malayalam.
Festival Co-director Namita Gokhale says, “India is a nation of strong women who are socially vulnerable. This years’ program at Jaipur addresses a range of women’s issues and literary voices from across the world. I am especially looking forward to ‘Imagine’, a session invoking human strength and solidarity across boundaries.”
Some of the highlights of this theme include:
Celebrated Tamil feminist writer Ambai speak’s of her writing and of SPARROW, [Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women], a trust set up in 1988 in Mumbai to build a national archives for women with print, oral history and pictorial material.
In the session, The Yogini, David White discusses the cult of the Yogini with Diana Eck among others. Shabana Azmi will be in conversation with Prasoon Joshi in a session titled ‘Sex and Sensibility’, on the important question of representations of women in bollywood.
K R Indira talk’s about a women’s Kamasutra and the feminine right to appreciate their own sensuality without intimidation.
In Festival advisor Urvashi Butalia observes, “JLF 2013’s attention to women’s voices is an important gesture of solidarity with Indians fighting for a fairer, inclusive India”.
A Life Apart, the English translation of Prabha Khaitan’s famed autobiography, Anya se Ananya, we scrutinizes the interior lives of women and the power of testimonial literature to break the ground and open new spaces in women’s narratives.
“Women in the Path” will look at the mismatch between the essence and the theological theory of Buddhist philosophy on the issue of women and ultimate liberation. “Adhura Aadmi, Adhuna Naari” will look at the link between the sexes in the articulation of a human Voice.
Stree Hokar Sawaal Karti Ho? – examines the increasingly vocal questions that women ask and the silences that they receive in reply.
The festival will create an inclusive experience for its visitors with enhanced seating capacity, pre-opening music sessions and a series of book launches. Online press registration closes on 15th January. Vsit the website – jaipurliteraturefestival.org for latest updates
About The DSC Jaipur Literature Festival
The DSC Jaipur Literature Festival is considered to be Asia’s leading literature event, celebrating national and international writers, and encompassing a range of activities including film, music and theatre.
