JLF Soneva Fushi begins

New Delhi : Soneva has partnered with Teamwork Arts, producer of Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), to bring JLF to the Maldives.

Spread over 10 days and two weekends, the festival will be from May 13 to May 22 at locations across the island. There will be various themes including travel, fiction, food, art, wellness, climate change, and environment.

Conceived as a study in a “slow life”, with morning yoga sessions, workshops, international cuisine, and sunsets against a languorous blue sea, the festival aims to be an opportunity to reconnect with the joys of live performances of art, music, and literature on the idyllic island of Kunfunadhoo.

Sanjoy Roy, Managing Director of Teamwork Arts, the producer of JLF said, “We are excited to bring a version of the world as the biggest literary event to the Maldives with JLF Soneva Fushi, which explores diversity and creates a platform to celebrate world literature and commonality.”

Sonu Shivdasani, CEO and co-founder of Soneva, added: “We are delighted to be hosting part of JLF in Male, and hope that people living in the capital enjoy participating in this exciting festival of culture, music, and literature.”

The festival will feature over 30 celebrated thinkers and writers in this year’s programme. The list includes Academy-nominated film director Mira Nair. In conversation with Sanjoy K Roy, Nair will discuss her riveting work and the world in relation to art. Roy will also speak to New York Times bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name and Find Me, Andre Aciman.

Challenges, promises, and urgent questions comprise the reality of today. How do we make sense of the dimensions of the world order that are shifting at a rapid, mercurial pace? Writer and investigative journalist, Patrick Radden Keefe; American political staffer and writer, Huma Abdein; and writer, historian and hotelier, Peter Frankopan discuss present times, the burden of history and an enigmatic future. Are we reverting to tribalism or approaching a new state of being entire? How do changing politics, technologies, and the inescapable climate crisis govern the context of the present and times to come?

Award-winning author, poet, and translator Arundhathi Subramaniam’s book, Women Who Wear Only Themselves: Conversations with Four Travellers on Sacred Journeys, depicts the spiritual journeys of four extraordinary women as the writer assumes the role of a seeker of the path to intimacy with the universe. In conversation with Puneeta Roy, Founder and Trustee of the Yuva Ekta Foundation, Subramaniam will take the audience along an evocative journey through her engagement with the yogic sciences, including the yoga of Bhakti and her deepening fascination and exploration of the voices of women in spiritual literature.

Award-winning author, historian, and Jaipur Literature Festival Founder and Co-Director William Dalrymple’s new book, The Golden Road, is about the diffusion of Indian art, architecture, religion, culture, science & civilisation across Asia in the early medieval period. At a session, Dalrymple will give a preview of his latest project. The panel will include authors Pavan K. Varma, Shobhaa De, Marcus du Sautoy, and Shashi Tharoor.

–IANS

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