editions

2019 | Dec. 6–8 | BIC, Bangalore

with Zoë Wicomb, Togara Muzanenhamo, I. Allan Sealy, Michael Kelleher, Jayant Kaikini, Joy Goswami, Vivek Shanbhag, Sharmistha Mohanty

2018 | Dec. 22–23 | IIC, Delhi

With Ari Sitas, Mani Rao, Subhro Bandhopadhyay, Rahul Soni, Vivek Narayanan, Sharmistha Mohanty

2017 | Dec. 16–17 | IIC, Delhi

with Bei Dao, Mohammed Bennis, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Manglesh Dabral, Sergio Chejfec, I. Allan Sealy, Joy Goswami, Emily Sun, Jared Stark, Magaret Carson, Vivek Narayanan, Sharmistha Mohanty

2015 | Feb. 13–15 | IIC, Delhi

with Raul Zurita, Joy Goswami, Kutti Revathy, K. Satchidanandan, Anna Deeny Morales, Bahauddin Dagar, Parvathy Baul, Vivek Narayanan, Sharmistha Mohanty

2013 | Dec. 19–22 | IIC, Delhi

with​ Xi Chuan, Bahauddin Dagar, Renee Gladman, László Krasznahorkai, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Ashis Nandy,​ Sharmistha Mohanty, Rahul Soni

2011 India-China | Dec. 19–21 | Jnanapravaha, Mumbai

with Bei Dao, Adil Jussawalla, Irwin Allan Sealy, Xi Chuan, Ouyang Jianghe, Han Shaogong, K. Satchidanandan, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Ge Fei, Ashis Nandy, Li Tuo, Lydia Liu, Yourou Zhong, Vivek Narayanan, Sharmistha Mohanty

2011 | Mar. 11–13 | IIC, Delhi

with Forrest Gander, Vahni Capildeo, George Szirtes, Irwin Allan Sealy, Rahul Soni, Giriraj Kiradoo, the Cybermohalla Collective, Charu Nivedita, Vivek Narayanan, Sharmistha Mohanty

2010 | Mar. 18–21 | IIC, Delhi

with Tomasz Salamun, Vahni Capildeo, Eliot Weinberger, Joy Goswami, Xu Xi, Anita Agnihotri, Charu Nivedita, Vivek Narayanan, Sharmistha Mohanty

2009 | Feb. 12–15 | IIC, Delhi

with Ashis Nandy, Kunwar Narain, Bei Dao, Joy Goswami, Xi Chuan, Ouyang Jianghe, Ge Fei, Zhai Yongming, K. Satchidanandan, Li Tuo, Vinod Kumar Shukla, Irwin Allan Sealy, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Vivek Narayanan, Sharmistha Mohanty

2008 | Mar. 6–9 | IIC, Delhi

with Claudio Magris, Bei Dao, George Szirtes, Udayan Vajpeyi, Irwin Allan Sealy, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Mani Kaul, Vivek Narayanan, Sharmistha Mohanty

2006 | Dec. 15–17 | IIC, Delhi

with Irwin Allan Sealy, George Szirtes, Mani Kaul, Mariko Nagai, K. Satchidanandan, Vinod Kumar Shukla, Arvind Mehrotra, Vivek Narayanan, Sharmistha Mohanty

2008 dialogues

March 6-9, India International Centre, New Delhi

evening readings

6.30 pm, IIC Annexe Court

Thursday, Mar. 6

Udayan Vajpeyi / Bei Dao

A dhrupad performance by Bahauddin Dagar on the rudra-veena

Friday, Mar. 7

Allan Sealy / Nabaneeta Dev Sen

Saturday, Mar. 8


Vivek Narayanan / George Szirtes

Sunday, Mar. 9

Sharmistha Mohanty / Claudio Magris

discussion

Thursday, Mar. 6, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm, Conference Room 1

Bei Dao says, “Many poets separate their experience from the language they use in poetry, but in the case of some, like Paul Celan, there is a fusion, a convergence of experience and experimental language.” Can this separation, and this fusion, be explored?

George Szirtes says, “Speaking personally, I suspect the poet’s key experience is of the simultaneous treacherousness, fragility and beauty of language, of the narrow divide between signification and meaninglessness or distortion of meaning. This is related to the question of community. How far is the language of the community to be trusted? What if the community doesn’t trust you? What kind of language are you left with outside the community?”

Can we look at these questions through the tools of the craft—syntax, diction, metaphor?

And, says Nabaneeta Dev Sen, “What about the silences, what the poet does not wish to say?

Bei Dao, George Szirtes, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Udayan Vajpeyi, Vivek Narayanan


Thursday, Mar. 6, 2:30 - 5:00 pm, Conference Room 1

A conversation with Bei Dao,
 with Sharmistha Mohanty and Vivek Narayanan


Friday, Mar. 7, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm, Conference Room

A talk by Claudio Magris on his own work, especially the form of his books Danube and Microcosms and a conversation with Sharmistha Mohanty.

Friday, Mar. 7, 2:30-5:00, Conference Room 1

Fact and Fiction

Writing in my new novel about the Bodhisatva Padmapani in the Ajanta caves, I found a fact which moved me. There is a reticent blue on the edges of the lotus petals, and in the centre of the necklace. This blue is made from lapis lazuli, a stone not known in India till the fourth or fifth century B.C. At this time, the Ajanta frescoes were still being created. Ajanta lay very near the old trade routes of western India. Lapis found its way there from the mines of Badakshan in Afghanistan, which is the only place that lapis is mined. It changed the paintings at Ajanta because this particular blue took the eyes inwards, as opposed to the browns and reds that come forth from the walls. The painters also seem to use it sparingly. Perhaps it was not available in large quantities. Or perhaps their use of it was dictated by what they saw around them. The scarp of Ajanta was brown and rough, with rust red soil. The earth was scorched and dry all year, except for the monsoons. Blue was a rare colour. So trade, art, landscape, religion and the spirit come together in a extraordinary way.

What then is the place of fact in the writer’s imagination? By fact I mean factual knowledge—whether of history, or geology, or natural processes—information now so widely available to us about the world. I do not mean historical novels here, or novels based on obvious realities like a war, or a natural disaster, I do not mean works of representation. I mean works of prose where the writer uses different kinds of facts, related or unrelated, and unifies them in her own vision, creating a new experience, a new insight.

The writer of literature does not use fact as sociological observation, and stand back. Her self is committed and she builds from the emotions and ambiguities and mysteries that the fact itself generates. The late W. G. Sebald was a great practitioner of this mode of writing.

How then does fact work as an element that builds emotion and insight, how does it push the imagination further?
— Sharmistha Mohanty

Sharmistha Mohanty, Claudio Magris, Allan Sealy, Mani Kaul, Nabaneeta Dev Sen


Saturday, Mar. 8, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm, Fountain Lawns

Looking vs. Reading

“I’m interested in the idea of looking vs. reading, that is, gathering one's material from the world as opposed to gathering it from books. This is only partly the contemporary / historical divide; it's also a fact / fiction fight, with the imagination and truth as referees.”
— Allan Sealy

Allan Sealy, Udayan Vajpeyi, George Szirtes, Vivek Narayanan

Saturday, Mar. 8, 2:30 - 5:00 pm, Fountain Lawns

An open session in which the audience and the writers can return to thoughts that have emerged over the course of the conference.