Jaipur Literature Festival @ NAC

With hundreds of thousands of spectators worldwide, mini-festivals from Houston to Doha, and speakers like Ken Follett, Patrick Radden Keefe and Jonathan Franzen, the iconic Jaipur Literature Festival is known as “the greatest literary show on earth” (Tina Brown). In conjunction with the Asia Society and the Center for Fiction, the National Arts Club hosts the eighth edition of Jaipur Literature Festival on September 11.

Session 1: How The World Made the West: Josephine Quinn in conversation with Sanjoy K. Roy

September 11, 2024 at 11 a.m.

Award-winning Oxford historian Josephine Quinn caused a stir in the British publishing world when How The World Made The West was sold in a heated 11-way auction. Published in the US this month, this book has been acclaimed as “a brilliant and learned challenge to modern western chauvinism” (Guardian) and “world history at its best” (Simon Sebag Montefiore). In this “radical new history of the ancient world”, Quinn argues that reducing the backstory of the modern West to a narrative that focuses on Greece and Rome impoverishes our view of the past. The ancient Greeks and Romans themselves understood and discussed their own connections to and borrowings from others, presenting their own culture as the result of contact and exchange. Quinn builds on the writings they left behind with rich analyses of other ancient literary sources like the epic of Gilgamesh, holy texts, and newly discovered records. The acclaimed historian appears in conversation with Sanjoy K. Roy, Managing Director of Teamwork Arts.

Session 2: Homo Irrealis: Andre Aciman in conversation with Kanishk Tharoor

September 11, 2024 at 12 p.m.

Novelist Andre Aciman--the bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name--is also known as “one of the finest essayists of the last hundred years.” (L A Review of Books). In Homo Irrealis, he returns to the essay form in order to explore what time means to artists. Irrealis moods are not about the present, past or future; they are about what might have been—what never was, but in theory could still happen. From meditations on subway poetry to the temporal resonances of an empty Italian street; from portraits of cities such as Alexandria and St. Petersburg to considerations of the lives and work of Freud, Cavafy, Sebald, Proust and others, Homo Irrealis is a deep reflection on the imagination’s power to forge a zone outside of time’s intractable hold. Andre Aciman is the editor of The Proust Project and teaches comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Kanishk Tharoor is the author of Swimmer Among the Stars, named a Best Book of the Year by the Guardian and NPR. Photo by Sigrid Estrada.

This event occurs in person. RSVP does not guarantee entry. Our coat check is limited. Please do not bring any large bags or backpacks.

Host or Publisher The National Arts Club