Join JLF Houston this year as we celebrate the distinct culture, vibrant diversity, and dynamic energy of the Bayou City. We will once again bring forth our signature camaraderie, a caravan of ideas, and the enchanting flow of conversations that make our festival truly incredible!
For more information & to buy tickets, please click here.
11 – 11:50 am
Grammophone Women
Vidya Shah in conversation with Mohan Ambikaipaker
Vidya Shah, a popular classical vocalist, musician, composer, and recipient of the Senior Fellowship form the Government and the Charles Wallace Award, composed Women on Record, a performance that sought to recover and record female performers who flourished during the era of the gramophone. In this session, Shah performs the vibrant stories of the gramophone women, emphasizing that music is always in conversation with life.
12 – 12:50 pm
The Writing Life
Alka Joshi and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni in conversation with Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan
Two internationally bestselling authors, Alka Joshi (The Henna Artist and The Jaipur Trilogy) and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (The Palace of Illusions, The Forest of Enchantments, and The Last Queen) explore the ins and outs of the writing life with academic and writer Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan. Together in conversation, they uncover the challenges, inspirations, and nuances of crafting compelling fiction centered on the female experience.
1 – 1:50 pm
Shashi Tharoor: A Man for All Seasons
Shashi Tharoor in conversation with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Indian writer, politician, and Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor‘s predilection for challenging words and telling phrases has created a sub-genre of #Tharoorisms, and his attempts at stand-up comedy have won him a constituency of admirers. In this conversation with the writer Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Tharoor talks about ideas, inspirations, and the many levels at which he engages with the world.
2 – 2:50 pm
Liliana’s Invincible Summer
Cristina Rivera Garza in conversation with Jose Aranda Jr.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cristina Rivera Garza‘s memoir, Liliana’s Invincible Summer, examines the profound impacts of violence against women as well as the transformative power of remembrance. In conversation with professor Jose Aranda Jr., she reflects on transforming her personal grief into a profound narrative. Garza’s work addresses societal challenges such as femicide, while paying homage to the enduring legacy and invincible spirit of her sister Liliana.
3 – 3:50 pm
The Literature of Healing
Fady Joudah, Kirsten Ostherr and Ricardo Nuila in conversation with Sunjay R. Devarajan
An engaging session with doctors and authors as they explore the intersection of medicine and literature. They offer unique insights into healing, empathy, and the human experience, blending medical knowledge with literary skill to deepen our understanding of life and our connection with nature.
4 – 4:50 pm
Fire Weather
John Vaillant in conversation with Navdeep Suri
In his gripping new Pulitzer Prize finalist book, Fire Weather, John Vaillant explores the complex relationship between ecological themes and their impact on humanity and the landscapes we inhabit. Vaillant is renowned for writing The Tiger and The Golden Spruce, and his research on issues like climate change, fire dynamics, and humanity’s ever-evolving relationship with the natural world. In conversation with writer and former diplomat Navdeep Suri, Vaillant discusses the world’s most pressing environmental challenges, highlighting the urgent need for proactive responsibility and global collaboration to address them.
5 – 5:50 pm
Invoking the Muse
Poetry Hour with Fady Joudah and Cristina Rivera Garza with Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan
From and for positions of precarity, Cristina Rivera Garza and Fady Joudah turn poetry into provocation. Pulitzer Prize winner Cristina Rivera Garza, known for her inspired free-associative imagination, shakes up the very meaning of reality in poetry that emanates feeling. Doctor, poet, and translator Fady Joudah’s perspective on the world resonates in his works, where each unexpected turn of a line startles us out of a conventional understanding. In this session of readings and conversation with academic and writer Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan, they speak of their poetry and their relationship with words and the world.
About the Speakers
Alka Joshi is the international best-selling author of the Jaipur Trilogy: The Henna Artist, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, and The Perfumist of Paris. Her debut novel, The Henna Artist, immediately became a New York Times Bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon Pick, and was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. It has been translated into 29 languages and is currently in development with Netflix as a series. In 2023, Forbes selected Joshi as one of 50 over 50 women empowering other women.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an award-winning writer, activist, and professor of Creative Writing at University of Houston, and the author of 21 books such as Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, Palace of Illusions, The Forest of Enchantments, and The Last Queen. Her newest novel, Independence, depicts the lives of three sisters during India’s freedom struggle.
Cristina Rivera Garza is an accomplished author, translator, and critic. Her most recent book, Liliana’s Invincible Summer, won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Memoir/Autobiography. She is also a MacArthur Fellow and the M.D. Anderson Distinguished Professor at the University of Houston, where she founded the Ph.D. program in Spanish with a concentration in Creative Writing.
Fady Joudah is the author of […]. He has also published six collections of poems: Earth in the Attic; Alight; Textu, a book-long sequence of short poems whose meter is based on cellphone character count; Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance; and Tethered to Stars. He has translated several collections of poetry from Arabic and is the co-editor and co-founder of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. He was a winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition in 2007 and has received the Jackson Poetry Prize, a PEN award, a Banipal/Times Literary Supplement prize from the UK, the Griffin Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Arab American Book Award.
Harpreet is a versatile artiste who sings original musical compositions in Hindi, as well as in regional Indian languages and dialects such as Punjabi, Bengali, Assamese, Rajasthani, and Haryanvi. He is best known for creating musical scores to epic works of humanist poets like Kabir and Bulleh Shah. Harpreet has performed at many distinguished stages across the world.
John Vaillant‘s most recent book, Fire Weather, won the Baillie Gifford Prize and named on of the “10 Best Books of the Year” by the New York Times. His other acclaimed, award-winning nonfiction books include The Golden Spruce and The Tiger, both national best sellers. He has written for The New Yorker and National Geographic, among others.
Navdeep Suri was India’s Ambassador to UAE, High Commissioner to Australia, Ambassador to Egypt, and Consul General in Johannesburg. His acclaimed translations include his grandfather Nanak Singh’s novels, Pavitra Paapi as The Watchmaker, and Adh Khidya Phul as A Life Incomplete. His recent work includes the searing Partition novels, Hymns in Blood and A Game of Fire and Khooni Vaisakhi, a long poem written by Nanak Singh in 1920 after surviving the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Ricardo Nuila is a writer, practicing doctor, and director of the Humanities Expression and Arts Lab (HEAL) at Baylor College of Medicine. His first book, The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine, was selected as one of the Best Books of 2023 by Amazon, Kirkus Review, and Washington Post.
Shashi Tharoor is the bestselling author of 25 books, besides being a third-term Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram and a former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations. He has won numerous awards, including the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Crossword Lifetime Achievement Award. He was also awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in the category of ‘English Non-Fiction’ for his book An Era of Darkness.
Shekhar Kapur is a filmmaker, actor, TV presenter, and entrepreneur. He is best known for films such as Elizabeth the Golden Age, Bandit Queen, and Four Feathers, that have won or been nominated for numerous awards including the Oscars, BAFTAs, and Filmfare Awards. He was the executive producer of the Bollywood-themed Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Bombay Dreams and of films such as The Guru for Universal Studios. Kapur set up Virgin Comics and Virgin Animation, and he has been on the jury of many international film festivals. He is passionate about the current challenges of environmental sustainability and the role of tech-led storytelling to make an impact. He has been part of a number of boards and advisory committees, including the Prime Minister of India’s Special Advisory Board for Innovation and the International Global Water Challenge. He is a recipient of the Padma Shri and has been the President of the Film and Television Institute of India since 2020.
