Namita Gokhale
FESTIVAL DIRECTOR
Namita Gokhale is the author of twenty three works of fiction and non-fiction. She is co-founder and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival and the director of Jaipur BookMark. Her debut novel, Paro: Dreams of Passion, published in 1984 , remains a cult classic. A novella, Never Never Land is a 2024 publication. Her recent non-fiction includes Mystics and Sceptics- Searching Himalayan Masters and the anthology Treasures of Lakshmi. She is the recipient of various prizes and awards, including the prestigious Sahitya Akademi (National Academy of Literature) Award 2021 for her novel Things to Leave Behind.
Manisha Chaudhry
Festival Co-Director
Manisha Chaudhry currently leads Jaipur BookMark, the publishing segment of the Jaipur Literature Festival and also heads the Zubaan-Prabha Khaitan Translation. An editor and translator, her work has been published by Kali for Women, Oxford University Press, Zubaan, Yatra, Niyogi and Pratham Books as also Permanent Black. Her translation, A Street in Srinagar, of the Hindi novel Ailan Gali Zinda Hai by Chandrakanta was shortlisted for the DSC Prize for Literature in 2012. Her most recent translation, The Chipko Movement:A People’s History of Shekhar Pathak’s Hari Bhari Ummeed has been awarded the Kamla Devi Chattopadhyay NIF book prize, 2022.
Sanjoy K. Roy
FESTIVAL PRODUCER
Sanjoy K. Roy, an entrepreneur of the arts, is the Managing Director of Teamwork Arts, which produces over 33 highly acclaimed performing arts, visual arts and literary festivals across 40 cities across the world. He is a founder trustee of Salaam Baalak Trust, providing support services for street and working children in Delhi. Roy works closely with various industry bodies and the government on policy issues in the cultural sector in India, and has lectured and collaborated with international universities such as University of Chicago, Harvard, MIT Media lab and the London School of Economics.
Sharupa Dutta
Producer
Sharupa Dutta has been a theatre actress and has produced and directed a number of theatre productions and television shows including serials, soap operas, chat shows, game shows, cookery shows, cultural programmes and telefilms. Dutta has been an intrinsic part of Teamwork Arts Pvt Ltd since the early 1990’s and is the Producer of the Jaipur Literature Festival, India.
Sammohan Mathodia
Executive Producer
Sammohan Mathodia currently serves as an Executive Producer at Teamwork Arts and has been responsible for executing over 52 productions including the Jaipur Literature Festival, JLF Internationals and many other art festivals in India and overseas. He was also part of the founding team that launched Jaipur BookMark, South Asia's first and now biggest publishing B2B conclave.
Aditi Maheshwari Goyal
FESTIVAL ADVISOR
Aditi Maheshwari Goyal heads the Department of Copyrights and Translation at Vani Prakashan and is the Managing Trustee at Vani Foundation. She is the Festival Director of Hindi Mahotsav and Secretariat Manager of Vani Foundation Distinguished Translator Award.
Ananth Padmanabhan
FESTIVAL ADVISOR
Ananth Padmanabhan is Chief Executive Officer of HarperCollins Publishers India. Since Padmanabhan’s appointment as CEO, the company has grown its revenues and expanded its publishing footprint in English language publishing for India. He is also Co-Chair of the Publishing Committee within FICCI and has served on the Executive Committee of the Association of Publishers in India (API).
Arunava Sinha
FESTIVAL ADVISOR
Arunava Sinha translates classic, modern and contemporary Bengali fiction and non-fiction from Bangladesh and India into English. He also translates fiction from English into Bengali. Over 80 of his translations have been published so far in India, the UK and the USA. He has won several translation awards. He teaches at Ashoka University, where he is also the co-director of the Ashoka Centre for Translation, and is the Books Editor at Scroll.in.
Hemali Sodhi
Festival Advisor
Hemali Sodhi has over two decades of experience in publishing, marketing and corporate communications. She is the founder of A Suitable Agency, a leading agency that represents writers and artists, and advises on brands on communications and strategy. Sodhi is the editor of The Book of Dog, featuring 45 original pieces by some of India’s leading writers and most exciting new voices.
May-Elin Stener
FESTIVAL ADVISOR
May-Elin Stener is currently Ambassador of Norway to India. Since 2020, she has been Deputy Director General of the regional department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway, covering Africa, Asia, Latin -America and the Middle East. Until 2020, Stener headed the section for Horn of Africa and West-Africa. She has worked for the Norwegian Foreign Service since 1995, and has extensive diplomatic experience multilaterally, with a focus on humanitarian affairs. She has also been posted to the UN offices in Geneva and has headed the section for Humanitarian Affairs in the Ministry.
Naveen Kishore
FESTIVAL ADVISOR
Naveen Kishore established Seagull Books in 1982 as a publishing programme in the arts and media focusing on drama, film, art and culture studies. Today, it also publishes literature, including poetry and serious fiction and owns the worldwide English-language publishing rights for books by Paul Celan, Ingeborg Bachmann, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Bernhard, Imre Kertész, Yves Bonnefoy, Mo Yan, Mahasweta Devi, Peter Handke, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, among others. He is also a recipient of the Goethe Medal and the Chevalier Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Neeta Gupta
FESTIVAL ADVISOR
Neeta Gupta is the publisher at Yatra Books and a literary consultant with a special emphasis on translations. Neeta Gupta is also the chief editor of Bhartiya Anuvad Parishad’s quarterly journal on translation, Anuvad. She has been working towards creating publishing connectivities across different languages and cultures. She has edited a volume of essays on translating from and into Indian languages titled, Translating Bharat, Reading India
Ravi Deecee
Festival Advisor
Ravi Deecee is the Publisher & Chief Executive Officer of DC Books, the first in the book industry in India to get ISO certified and one of the top five literary book publishing houses in India, and the leading book publisher in Malayalam. He is also the Managing Director of Current Books (India) Pvt. Ltd and the Secretary of DC Kizhakemuri Foundation. He founded Kerala Literature Festival (KLF), which has been conceived as a space that enables a confluence of thought, ideas & culture. In the year 2023 he was conferred with the ‘Kerala Sree’ award, given by the Government of Kerala.
Urvashi Butalia
FESTIVAL ADVISOR
Urvashi Butalia is the Co-founder of India's first feminist publishing house, Kali for Women (1984). Butalia currently runs Zubaan, another feminist imprint. She is an independent writer and researcher, with a five decade long involvement in the women's movement in India, writing and publishing widely on a range of issues regarding women and gender. Among her best known publications is the award-winning history of Partition, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (winner of the Oral History Book Association Award 2001 and the Nikkei Asia Award for Culture 2003). Her new book on the life of a hijra, Mona: The Book of Sundays is forthcoming.
