Jaipur Literature Festival announces first list of authors

An initial list of 165 authors, including global writers set to participate in the mammoth Jaipur Literature Festival scheduled in January 2016 has been announced today.
The ninth edition of the five-day literary extravaganza set to begin on January 21 at its usual historic setting of the Diggi Palace Hotel in Jaipur
Headline names set to attend this year are Canadian poet and novelist Margaret Atwood, Indian author Ruskin Bond, American photographic Steve McCurry, Harvard historian Niall Ferguson and Stephen Fry from Britain.
French economist and global voice on wealth and income inequality Thomas Piketty, Bosnian-American fiction writer Aleksandar Hemon, Israeli author and peace activist David Grossman, and India's most celebrated psychoanalyst and author Sudhir Kakar take centre-stage alongside leading writers, from India.

These include prominent Hindi poet and author Uday Prakash, Sahitya Akademi awarde winners in Assamese literature Rita Chowdhury and Dhrubajyoti Bora besides Gujarati poet and scholar Sitanshu Yashaschandra, among others.
The 2016 edition explores globally vital issues such as migration, privacy and navigating change and attempts to bring together a range of expertise and perspectives on stage.

Homi Bhabha from the Mahindra Humanities Centre is set to curate a strand of sessions around the theme of privacy in the contemporary world. Contributors include British author and columnist Ben Macintyre.
Frontline reporters would discuss conflict and its effect on the modern world with American reporter Dexter Filkins, English foreign correspondent Christina Lamb and CNN's national security analyst Peter Bergen.

Science communicator, children's author, journalist and novelist Lucy Hawking the daughter of physicist Stephen Hawking would speak of her extraordinary journey in transmitting the awe, wonder, and understanding of the universe to young readers.