Jaipur Literature Festival 2025 Unveils Multifaceted Program

Jaipur, 19 December – The Jaipur Literature Festival, known as the ‘greatest literary show on earth’, returns for its 18th edition from 30th January to 3rd February 2025 at Hotel Clarks Amer, Jaipur. Teamwork Arts, India’s pioneering curation company and Festival producer, revealed the first list of sessions for the 2025 programme, which will, once again, reinforce the transformative power of books and ideas.

With an ever-evolving legacy, the Festival is a crucial platform of local and global voices. The upcoming edition promises to foster dialogue, bridge divides, and spotlight diverse perspectives with a carefully curated lineup. With over 300 eminent speakers, this year’s Festival will feature debate, discourse and stories.

Among sessions that have been announced include:

Poor Economics for the Young
In their intriguing book, Poor Economics for Kids, Nobel Prize-winner Esther Duflo and renowned illustrator Cheyenne Olivier explain economic concepts to younger readers, encouraging them to open their minds and broaden their perspectives. Together, Duflo and Olivier discuss the early foundation of social awareness and empathy it seeks to establish.

Our City That Year
International Booker Prize-winner Geetanjali Shree allows glimpses of startling insight into the fragmented atmosphere and psyches of a society, of friends and individuals, marked by the divisiveness of communalism, in Hamara Shahar Us Baras, translated into Our City That Year by International Booker Prize-winning translator Daisy Rockwell. At this session, Shree speaks about how her novel tells the story of any city, any year, at a time when sectarian divides are globally on the rise.

David Hare: A Life in Theatre and Film
BAFTA-winning playwright David Hare, author of iconic works such as The Secret Rapture, The Absence of War, and Skylight, and celebrated as ‘the finest living British dramatist’, gives us insight into his creative process and the inspirations and moments that have shaped his career.

India’s First Diplomats
Nehruvian foreign policy and the first line of diplomats who walked the line between internal consolidation and external threat are explored in rich detail in journalist Kallol Bhattacharjee’s Nehru’s First Recruits: The Diplomats Who Built Independent India’s Foreign Policy. In this session, which explores how the diplomat becomes pivotal to the process of statecraft, Bhattacharjee will be in conversation with former High Commissioner of India to Pakistan TCA Raghavan, author and former diplomat Navtej Sarna, former assistant secretary-general at the UN Lakshmi Puri and former High Commissioner of India to Canada, Vikas Swarup.

Roman Year: A Memoir
Author, Distinguished Professor at CUNY, and winner of the Whiting Award, André Aciman has over 17 works of fiction and non-fiction to his name. Globally acclaimed for his tender depictions of love, loss, and adolescence in Call Me By Your Name, Aciman is well-known for his absorbing narratives and their unflinching explorations of emotion. In this session, bestselling author André Aciman recounts his journey through love, memory, and identity with novelist Shivani Sibal.

Kairos: The Heart Divided
Winner of the International Booker Prize 2024, Kairos: The Heart Divided by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Michael Hofmann, centres around a passionate but destructive love affair set against the backdrop of East Berlin in the 1980s. As the region crumbles, so does the relationship, revealing the complexities of power, betrayal, and the shifting loyalties of an era in flux. Erpenbeck and Hofmann explore the philosophical tensions of choice and fate, bringing together art and politics in this deeply reflective session.

The Personal Is Political: An Activist’s Memoir
Award-winning activist Aruna Roy’s powerful memoir, The Personal Is Political, captures her profound engagement with public service in India along with her personal journey through the decades. In this session, she discusses the pivotal moments from her life, including her leadership in passing the Right to Information Act, impelling the government to be transparent about their actions, her contribution to empowering local communities in Tilonia at the Social Work and Research centre.

Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality
Nobel laureate and structural biologist Venki Ramakrishnan’s new book, Why We Die, examines the human fascination and fear of death. Spanning across the frontiers of biology and scientific research, Ramakrishnan questions mortality and the transformation that takes place within human physiology. In conversation with Roger Highfield, Ramakrishnan evaluates the cheat code of human existence and the quest for immortality.

The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters
Benjamin Moser’s The Upside-Down World is an ode to Dutch artists, taking readers on a twenty-year-journey of his time in Holland, that chronicles his arriving in the Netherlands as a young writer to his discovery of the creative masters who shaped the Dutch Golden Age of Art. Describing how he found solace and friends amongst long-gone artists, Moser will discuss the never-ending questions about the story of art, why we create, and why that matters.

Amol Palekar: The Viewfinder
In his memoir The Viewfinder, iconic actor-director Amol Palekar reflects on his life and career, offering a deeply personal look at Indian cinema and creativity. Joined by filmmaker Sandhya Gokhale, he shares candid stories and insights with Festival Producer and Managing Director, Teamwork Arts, Sanjoy K. Roy, taking readers and listeners on a journey through the evolution of storytelling, art, and performance in Indian cinema.

Two Sages: Gandhi and Tolstoy
Mahatma Gandhi and Leo Tolstoy were contemporaries and had a long friendship, exchanging letters despite never meeting in person. Gandhi was deeply influenced by Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You. In this compelling session, their distinguished descendants, Gopalkrishna Gandhi and Daniil Tolstoy, reflect on the inheritance of ideas and the enduring legacies of the two iconic thinkers, exploring their relevance both in the past and present.

Deep Water: The World in the Ocean
A sweeping exploration of humanity’s intricate ties to the ocean, author James Bradley’s latest book, Deep Water, examines the role of the ocean as life’s cradle, a force of history, and a fragile lifeline. In conversation with Mridula Ramesh, the Australian Ambassador to India, Philip Green, and environmentalist Yuvan Aves, Bradley discusses this environmental urgency and the intertwined bond between humanity and planet earth.

Long and the Short
Is brevity the soul of wit? Is length essential for gravitas? What challenges and rewards do different writing forms present? Namita Gokhale – Co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival and award-winning author – and Lucy Caldwell whose Openings: Thirteen Stories explores love, loss, and the human condition set against contemporary Ireland – discuss the contrasting worlds of long-form writing – epic sagas and weighty fiction – and the allure of short stories, flash fiction, and slim volumes.