In a good news for bibliophiles across the world, the iconic Jaipur Literature Festival on Thursday announced the launch of its digital literature series called "Brave New World".
The series, to be kicked-off on Saturday, is a virtual initiative to "celebrate books, their power and positivity" during the nationwide 21-day coronavirus lockdown. To be online twice a week -- Saturday and Wednesday -- It will feature two sessions per day.
Eminent authors, including Shashi Tharoor, Abhinav Chandrachud, Bruno Maes, Bee Rowlatt and Prayaag Akbar, will be participating in the series discussing issues ranging from the 1896 "Bubonic plague" in the then Bombay, or the ongoing coronavirus crisis in the world, to "dystopian fiction and its increasingly real and uncanny presence in our lives".
"We believe that these testing times are also the moments in which we need to interrogate and make sense of our world, through books and ideas, debate and dialogue, music and philosophy, science and the arts.
"JLF, which has always been a platform that celebrates the spirit of human connection, is now ready to go straight into hearts and minds and homes. Our timely new initiative, 'Brave New World' will provide an important new resource for our extended JLF family across the world," said Namita Gokhale, writer and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival.
The organisers, giving a peep into some of the upcoming sessions, said writer and broadcaster Bee Rowlat and Baroness Helena Kennedy will explore the need to protect the "forum internum" - our private mental space - from the incursions of digital technology - at a session titled "Freedom of Thought".
"Walls and Bridges' will be a session on dystopian fiction and its increasingly real and uncanny presence in our lives in which Prayaag Akbar, author of 'Leila' (which was adapted into a Netflix series), and Amrita Tripathi, author of 'The Sibius Knot' will share their views," it added.
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The initial sessions of the series, which will run on the official social media platforms of the Festival, will be free and open for all. However, to watch other sessions, the attendees will have to register on the JLF's official website.
Also, there will be live question and answer sessions at the end of every session with the audience, informed the organisers.