ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival 2019: Mary Beard, Yann Martel, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni to speak on Day 4

In his debut visit to the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, acclaimed author Yann Martel will speak at one of the morning sessions: an interaction with author Jerry Pinto on ‘Before and After Pi’ at the Front Lawn at Diggi Palace. The penultimate day of the festival will also include a session titled ‘After Bloodhead’ by artist Marc Quinn in the morning as part of the J Paul Getty Trust series. Others scheduled to appear on 27 January include the noted classicist Mary Beard and authors Andre Aciman, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Ashwin Sanghi. In a panel discussion titled The Frontline Club, American journalist Eliza Grisworld, Jon Lee Anderson, Ramita Navai, Sam Kiley and Steve Coll will be in conversation with talk show host Suhasini Haidar in a session presented by Mathrubhumi, and paleoanthropologist Daniel E Lieberman will chat with Tony Joseph on the evolution of the human body in keeping with the 12th edition’s aim to increase more conversations around science at the festival. [caption id=“attachment_5948191” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Classicist Mary Beard, poet Kapka Kassabova and author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni are among the speakers on Day 4. Images via Wikimedia Commons/Facebook[/caption] The audience will be taken by Beard on a tour of the ancient civilisation and histories of the city of Rome with an introduction by Dan Jones. A group of popular authors will discuss ‘Adaptations’ in a session presented by Rajasthan Patrika. Divakaruni, who recently launched her work  Forest of Enchantments , a rendition of the Ramayana as narrated by Sita, will be in conversation at this discussion with Call Me By Your Name author Aciman, Irvine Welsh, the writer of Sacred Games,  Vikram Chandra  and Martel, each of whose works have been adapted into critically-acclaimed films. Also on the fourth day are sessions that discuss mythology and mysticism: a talk by Dan Jones titled ‘The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God’s Holy Warriors’, his 2017 work, following an introduction by Christopher de Hamel and Sanjoy K Roy in a chat with author John Zubrzycki on ‘The Empire of Enchantment: The Story of Indian Magic’. In yet another session, Aciman will team up with Ruby Wax, British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore and Tova Reich, author of works such as My Holocaust to talk about ‘The Jewish Novel’, moderated by Zachary Leader and Alexander McCall Smith. Irvine Welsh and poet Kapka Kassabova will converse with the  co-director of the festival  William Darlymple in ‘Scotland Street’. JLF 2019 will also host a discussion titled ‘Performance’ featuring award-winning author Ben Okri, Kaveh Akbar, Ruth Padel, Tishani Doshi and Zeina Hashem Beck with an introduction by William Sieghart and Reich in conversation with Joseph on ‘A Tale of Two Subcontinents’. The high point of Day 4 is the discussion between classicist Beard and feminist author Germaine Greer who will discuss with Katty Kay and Reni Eddo-Lodge the crucial subject of ‘Women and Power’, in a session moderated by Bee Rowlatt. Authors Sanghi, Mitra Phukan and Amitabh Kant are also a part of the line-up, participating in several talks on the penultimate day of ZEE JLF 2019. The Zee Jaipur Literature Festival will go on from 24 January to 28 January 2019 at the Diggi Palace in Jaipur, Rajasthan. More details  here.