Manisha Koirala, Perumal Murugan to speak at JLF 2019

Manisha Koirala, Perumal Murugan and Vikram Chandra will be among the 250 speakers scheduled to participate in the 2019 edition of the annual Jaipur Literature Festival.

Scheduled to be held between January 24 and January 28 next year at the Diggi Palace in Jaipur, the annual literary event will feature a diverse mix of speakers including writers, thinkers, humanitarians, politicians, business leaders, soprts people and entertainers.

"It has been a year of many upheavals and changes in the struggle for gender equity, and our programming will reflect these issues and concerns.

"We also have a special emphasis on science, the scientific temper, speculative fiction, as well as artificial intelligence and what the future might hold for our planet," Namita Gokhale, writer, publisher and co-director of the festival, said.

The first list of 30 speakers announced Saturday include art curatorAmin Jaffer, a memoirist, essayist and New York Times bestselling novelist Andr Aciman, Pulitzer Prize winning authorAndrew Sean, internationally acclaimed sculptorAnish Kapoor, and award-winning writer Anuradha Roy.

Historian and co-director William Dalrymple said the 2019 edition of JLF will field the "strongest Jaipur line-up".

"It's an astonishing line up and I can't wait for the 24th of January to see it all become a reality," he said.

The first list of speakers also features Indian herpetologist and wildlife conservationistRom Whitaker, English actor, writer and directorRupert Everett, bestselling and prize-winning British author and historianSimon Sebag Montefiore, Malayalam fiction-writer and columnistN.S. Madhavan, former civil servant and author Upamanyu Chatterjee, andVikram Chandra of 'Sacred Games' fame among others.