Jaipur Bytes

A live session from #JaipurLitFest2020. Shashi Tharoor is a politician, public intellectual, award-winning author of 19 books of fiction and nonfiction, avid follower of cricket and author of Shadows Across the Playing Field: 60 Years Of India-Pakistan Cricket. Gideon Haigh is an eminent sports journalist and author of Crossing the Line: How Australian Cricket Lost Its Way and From Flock to Baggy Green. Acclaimed news anchor, writer and senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai is the author of Democracy's XI: The Great Indian Cricket Story. Author Keshava Guha is Fiction Editor of Juggernaut Books and a sports enthusiast.

Hallie Rubenhold, author of "The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper", in conversation with Jaipur Bytes host Lakshya Datta, recorded live at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2020 at the Diggi Palace on Jan 27. Hallie Rubenhold is a bestselling author, social historian, broadcaster and historical consultant for TV and film. Her most recent book, The Five, has been won the Baillie Gifford Prize 2019 and shortlisted for the Crime Writer’s Association Gold Dagger. It is the first biography of the five victims of Jack the Ripper and reclaims the narrative in favour of the women, rather than the murderer.

Anosh Irani, author of "Translated from the Gibberish: Seven Stories and One Half Truth" and "The Parcel", in conversation with jaipur Bytes host Lakshya Datta, recorded live at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2020 on Jan 27. Anosh Irani’s novel, The Parcel, was a finalist for the 2016 Governor General’s Literary Award. It was longlisted for the 2017 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and is currently on the 2018 Dublin Literary Award longlist. His play, Bombay Black, won five Dora Mavor Moore Awards and his nonfiction has been published in Granta and The New York Times.

Peter Meech, author of "Billy (the Kid)", in conversation with Jaipur Bytes host Lakshya Datta, recorded live at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2020 at Diggi Palace on Jan 27. Peter Meech is an author, screenwriter, director and producer.  His memoir, Mysteries of the Life Force: My Apprenticeship with a Chi Kung Master, has been translated into several languages. He has an MA in Communications from Stanford, where he won a Stanford Nicholl writing award. His debut novel is Billy (the Kid).

Stephen Frederic Dale, author of "Babur: Timurid Prince and Mughal Emperor", in conversation with Jaipur Bytes host Lakshya Datta, recorded live at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2020 in Diggi Palace on Jan 27. Stephen is an Emeritus Professor of South Asian and Islamic History and a Distinguished University Scholar at The Ohio State University. He first visited India in 1963 as a Fulbright Lecturer in English at the Banaras Hindu University and returned in 1967 to work in the Madras/Chennai archives to carry out research for his dissertation on the Muslims of Kerala. His published works include Islamic Society on the South Asian Frontier: the Mappilas of Malabar 1498-1922, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade 1600-1750, The Garden of the Eight Paradises: Babur and the Culture of Empire in Central Asia, Afghanistan and India, The Muslim Empire of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals, The Orange Trees of Marrakesh: Ibn Khaldun and the Science of Man and Babur: Timurid Prince and Mughal Emperor.

Rheea Mukherjee, author of "The Body Myth", in conversation with Jaipur Bytes host Lakshya Datta, recorded live at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2020 on Jan 27. Rheea Mukherjee is the author of The Body Myth and was shortlisted for the TATA Literature Live First Book Award 2019. Her work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Buzzfeed, Scroll.in, Electric Literature, Out of Print Magazine and Southern Humanities Review, among others. She co-founded Bangalore Writers Workshop in 2012 and currently co-runs Write Leela Write, a Design and Content Laboratory in Bangalore. You can get her book on Amazon.

As Artificial Intelligence takes over human narratives, Marcus du Sautoy questions the shape of our future. In his book The Creativity Code: How AI is Learning to Write, Paint and Think, he expounds on how algorithms work, the nature of creativity and how engineers are tracking our emotional responses to art. In a riveting session, du Sautoy, the Simonyi Professor for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, discusses intuition, the creative process and its correlation with mathematics. In conversation with Jaipur Literature Festival producer Sanjoy K. Roy.

Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer were awarded the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences 2019 for ‘their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty’ by breaking down a complex problem into ‘smaller, more manageable questions’. Abhijit Banerjee returns to the Jaipur Literature Festival to speak of his RCT research-based approach to development economics. In conversation with journalist Sreenivasan Jain, he explains the need to understand and measure what happens in the real world to alleviate poverty and the necessity of making the poor and their decision-making central to the process. An inspirational session of insights and learnings vital to understanding our world.

Ravish Kumar, a much- awarded and fearless journalist, is also the author of tender nano storie  and the Ramon Magsaysay awardee in 2019. In a thoughtful and probing session with writer and columnist Nilanjana S. Roy, he speaks of his books and beliefs, his poems and love stories, the compulsions of prime-time news and the duties of responsible journalism.

Deepa Agarwal, author of "Journey to the Forbidden City" and "The Begum", in conversation with Jaipur Bytes host Lakshya Datta, recorded live at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2020 on Jan 26. Deepa Agarwal is an author, poet and translator who writes for both children and adults. She has over 50 published books to her credit and is the recipient of the NCERT National Award for Children’s Literature, among other honours. Her recent books are The Begum, Blessed, Friendship Stories and Journey to the Forbidden City.