HUSTON: The Jaipur Literary Festival is set to make a grand return to Houston on September 15th, with an exciting lineup that includes acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair. This marks the sixth edition of the festival, a globally renowned literary extravaganza that will grace Houston from the 15th to the 17th of September.

Having made its debut in Houston back in 2018, the festival has been steadily gaining momentum as a literary force to be reckoned with in North America, following its successful iterations in New York and Colorado. Notably, in 2022, the festival adapted to the times, hosting its first hybrid edition in Houston after two successful virtual editions in collaboration with the Consulate General of India in Houston, Asia Society Texas Centre, and Inprint.

The festival's inauguration will feature a gripping session titled 'Ukraine: The Cost of War,' delving deep into the harsh realities of conflict reporting and its impact on literature. The panel will include Tetyana Dzyadevych, an expert on contemporary Ukrainian and Russian culture and literature, Oksana Lutsyshyna, the recipient of the UNESCO Prize for Lviv City of Literature, and Anjan Sundaram, an award-winning author, journalist, and television presenter.

Another thought-provoking session will bring celebrated author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, known for her recent novel "Independence," into a conversation with Tayyba Maya Kanwal, the winner of the Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize. They will explore the human cost of "independence" in the context of Bengal, Bangladesh, and the profound consequences of Partition.

Priyamvada Natarajan, a distinguished cosmologist and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Yale University, will take the stage to discuss the most significant cosmological discoveries of the past century. She is the renowned author of "Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas that Reveal the Cosmo."

Furthermore, the festival will engage in a stimulating conversation about the banning of books across different eras and societal landscapes and how these books manage to endure despite attempts at obliteration.

In yet another engaging session, Parini Shroff, a practicing attorney and author of "The Bandit Queens," and Aruni Kashyap, an academic and author of "His Disease: Stories" and "The House with a Thousand Stories," will converse with Festival Co-Director and writer Namita Gokhale. They will explore the diverse voices, identities, and senses of belonging found in the stories and poems of South Asian writers in the United States.

Before arriving in Houston, the Jaipur Literary Festival treated New York audiences to enriching sessions on September 12th and 13th, featuring luminaries such as Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Vijay Sheshadri, mathematician and novelist Manil Suri, and Sahitya Academy Award-winning poet and author Arundhati Subramaniam.

Following the Houston edition, the ninth installment of the Jaipur Literary Festival in Boulder, Colorado, will take place from September 21st to 23rd, promising more literary delights for enthusiasts and thinkers alike.

G20 Summit 2023 Spouses' Events: Lunch at Jaipur House, Millet Field Tour at IARI-Pusa