JLF announces first list of 30 authors

The Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) announced the first list of 30 speakers, including two Pulitzer award winners, for its annual five-day event.

The 12th edition will begin on January 24, 2019, at Diggi Palace in Jaipur.

According to festival organisers, around 250 speakers are expected to attend the 2019 edition of the literary festival. The speakers were unveiled via an online engagement with literature enthusiasts guessing the names of the speakers based on clues shared under the hashtag #30Speakers30hours, the release stated.

The first list of authors includes Alexander Mccall Smith, Amin Jaffer, André Aciman, Andrew Sean Greer, Anish Kapoor, Anuradha Roy, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Colson Whitehead, Donna Zuckerberg, Germaine Greer, Hari Kunzru, Jeremy Paxman, Jon Lee Anderson, Juergen Boos, Manisha Koirala, Marc Quinn, Markus Zusak, Molly Crabapple, NS Madhavan, Narendra Kohli, Noviolet Bulawayo, Perumal Murugan, Priyamvada Natarajan, Rom Whitaker, Rupert Everett, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Tawfiq E Chowdhury, Uday Prakash, Upamanyu Chatterjee and Vikram Chandra.

William Dalrymple, writer, historian and co-director of JLF, said, “In 2019 we’ll be fielding the strongest Jaipur line-up ever and acclaimed novelists, historians and biographers, thinkers and dreamers, travellers and critics, actors and screenwriters, genii and major league prize winners.”

Sanjoy K Roy, managing director of Teamwork Arts, which produces the literary festival, said, “As we wait to celebrate another milestone year of the Jaipur Literature Festival, we look forward to the infectious energy of intellectual debate and the dynamism that charges the festival’s atmosphere and comes from a mingling of celebrated minds, diverse perspectives, and heightened cultural experiences".