The Jaipur Literature Festival just got done for 2015, and there are already at least thirty-three confirmed speakers slated to appear next year, including musicians Patti Smith and PJ Harvey, and political theorist Noam Chomsky. Here are ten of the writers we’re excited about listening to between January 21 and 25, 2016.
Margaret Atwood is one of the Canada's best-loved writers. She has published many collections of poetry, essays, short stories, and novels. She is also a staunch environmental activist. Her work has won her millions of fans and much critical acclaim, including the Arthur C. Clarke award and the Booker prize. She is noted for her often dystopian speculative fiction, and for depicting the oppression of women and the natural world, sometimes drawing parallels between the two. Her latest is her 55th book, an anthology of stories called Stone Mattress. She will be the first writer to contribute to the Future Library Project, meaning that her story for them will only be read for the first time in 2114.
Ian McEwan's novels include Amsterdam (1998), for which he won the Booker prize, and Atonement (2001), which was adapted into an Oscar-winning film. The British novelist and screenwriter has been criticised for accepting the Jerusalem Prize and for his remarks on Islam. His latest work is The Children Act (2014), featuring Fiona Maye, a high court judge up against personal and professional battles.
Kazuo Ishiguro, the renowned British novelist of Japanese origin, will publish his latest, The Buried Giant in 2015. This is his first work in a decade. His novels The Remains of the Day (1989) and Never Let Me Go (2005) have both been adapted for the screen. Ishiguro uses first-person narration to reveal the rich inner life of his protagonists, who are often depicted as struggling with their pasts. He has also written teleplays, screenplays, and lyrics. His work has been translated into over forty languages.
Marina Warner's 40-year career is breathtaking in its scope. She has written award-winning historical works and criticism, as well as short stories and novels. She teaches literature and creative writing, and is chairing the Man Booker prize panel for 2015. But she is best known for her consummate literary scholarship of fairy tales and mythology. Her latest work is Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale (2014).
Aleksandar Hemon is a Bosnian-American writer and critic. He went to Chicago for what was intended to be a short visit in 1992, but could not return home because his native Sarajevo came under siege at the same time. Already an established writer in his mother tongue, he wrote his first story in English at the age of 31. He is noted for his startling imagery and his mastery across genres.
Michael Cunningham is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours, which is about how Mrs Dalloway affects three women's lives in different places and times. He teaches creative writing at Yale, and has written six other novels, the latest being The Snow Queen (2014). It follows the lives of three characters in New York City as they struggle to come to grips with heartbreak, addiction, and illness.
Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century became an unlikely bestseller in 2014. It uses rigorous analysis of historical facts, theory and data to argue that return on capital is higher than the rate of economic growth. In the wake of the Occupy movement, Piketty's observations had profound implications for the discourse on inequality, and made a rock-solid case for capitalism to be reformed.
Laksmi Pamuntjak is an Indonesian writer of prose and poetry. She has had a long career as a columnist on politics, food, film, literature, and classical music. She is the co-founder of Aksara, a bi-lingual bookstore in Jakarta. Her debut novel, Amba, published in English as The Question of Red, sets the story of Amba and Bhishma against the Indonesia of the 20th century, specifically Suharto's regime.
Rohinton Mistry is a giant among Indian diaspora writers. Mistry's three novels, Such a Long Journey (1991), A Fine Balance (1995), andFamily Matters (2002), all feature the lives of Parsi characters against the backdrop of social and political turmoil. Mistry has been twice short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for his first novel.
Jorie Graham has published many books of poetry, most recently Place (2012). In 1998, she succeeded Seamus Heaney to become Harvard's Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory - the first woman ever to have done so. She won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994. Graham's poetry is concerned with philosophy, mythology, visual art, and history. The Poetry Foundation has called her "one of the most celebrated poets of the American post-war generation".
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Margaret Atwood is one of the Canada's best-loved writers. She has published many collections of poetry, essays, short stories, and novels. She is also a staunch environmental activist. Her work has won her millions of fans and much critical acclaim, including the Arthur C. Clarke award and the Booker prize. She is noted for her often dystopian speculative fiction, and for depicting the oppression of women and the natural world, sometimes drawing parallels between the two. Her latest is her 55th book, an anthology of stories called Stone Mattress. She will be the first writer to contribute to the Future Library Project, meaning that her story for them will only be read for the first time in 2114.
Ian McEwan's novels include Amsterdam (1998), for which he won the Booker prize, and Atonement (2001), which was adapted into an Oscar-winning film. The British novelist and screenwriter has been criticised for accepting the Jerusalem Prize and for his remarks on Islam. His latest work is The Children Act (2014), featuring Fiona Maye, a high court judge up against personal and professional battles.
Kazuo Ishiguro, the renowned British novelist of Japanese origin, will publish his latest, The Buried Giant in 2015. This is his first work in a decade. His novels The Remains of the Day (1989) and Never Let Me Go (2005) have both been adapted for the screen. Ishiguro uses first-person narration to reveal the rich inner life of his protagonists, who are often depicted as struggling with their pasts. He has also written teleplays, screenplays, and lyrics. His work has been translated into over forty languages.
Marina Warner's 40-year career is breathtaking in its scope. She has written award-winning historical works and criticism, as well as short stories and novels. She teaches literature and creative writing, and is chairing the Man Booker prize panel for 2015. But she is best known for her consummate literary scholarship of fairy tales and mythology. Her latest work is Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale (2014).
Aleksandar Hemon is a Bosnian-American writer and critic. He went to Chicago for what was intended to be a short visit in 1992, but could not return home because his native Sarajevo came under siege at the same time. Already an established writer in his mother tongue, he wrote his first story in English at the age of 31. He is noted for his startling imagery and his mastery across genres.
Michael Cunningham is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours, which is about how Mrs Dalloway affects three women's lives in different places and times. He teaches creative writing at Yale, and has written six other novels, the latest being The Snow Queen (2014). It follows the lives of three characters in New York City as they struggle to come to grips with heartbreak, addiction, and illness.
Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century became an unlikely bestseller in 2014. It uses rigorous analysis of historical facts, theory and data to argue that return on capital is higher than the rate of economic growth. In the wake of the Occupy movement, Piketty's observations had profound implications for the discourse on inequality, and made a rock-solid case for capitalism to be reformed.
Laksmi Pamuntjak is an Indonesian writer of prose and poetry. She has had a long career as a columnist on politics, food, film, literature, and classical music. She is the co-founder of Aksara, a bi-lingual bookstore in Jakarta. Her debut novel, Amba, published in English as The Question of Red, sets the story of Amba and Bhishma against the Indonesia of the 20th century, specifically Suharto's regime.
Rohinton Mistry is a giant among Indian diaspora writers. Mistry's three novels, Such a Long Journey (1991), A Fine Balance (1995), andFamily Matters (2002), all feature the lives of Parsi characters against the backdrop of social and political turmoil. Mistry has been twice short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for his first novel.
Jorie Graham has published many books of poetry, most recently Place (2012). In 1998, she succeeded Seamus Heaney to become Harvard's Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory - the first woman ever to have done so. She won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994. Graham's poetry is concerned with philosophy, mythology, visual art, and history. The Poetry Foundation has called her "one of the most celebrated poets of the American post-war generation".