Manisha Koirala and Vikram Vikram Chandra to participate in Jaipur Literature Festival

Manisha Koirala, Perumal Murugan and Vikram Chandra will be among the 250 speakers scheduled to participate in the 2019 edition of the annual Jaipur Literature Festival.

Scheduled to be held between January 24 and January 28 next year at the Diggi Palace in Jaipur, the annual literary event will feature a diverse mix of speakers including writers, thinkers, humanitarians, politicians, business leaders, sports people and entertainers.

"It has been a year of many upheavals and changes in the

struggle for gender equity, and our programming will reflect these issues and concerns.

"We also have a special emphasis on science, the scientific temper, speculative fiction, as well as artificial intelligence and what the future might hold for our planet," Namita Gokhale, writer, publisher and co-director of the festival, said.

The first list of 30 speakers announced Saturday include art curator Amin Jaffer, a memoirist, essayist and New York Times bestselling novelist André Aciman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Andrew Sean, internationally acclaimed sculptor Anish Kapoor, and award-winning writer Anuradha Roy.

Historian and co-director William Dalrymple said the 2019 edition of JLF will field the "strongest Jaipur line-up".

"It’s an astonishing lineup and I can't wait

for the 24th of January to see it all become a reality," he said.

The first list of speakers also features Indian herpetologist and wildlife conservationist Rom Whitaker, English actor, writer and director Rupert Everett, bestselling and prize-winning British author and historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, Malayalam fiction-writer and columnist N.S. Madhavan, former civil servant and author Upamanyu Chatterjee, and Vikram Chandra of 'Sacred Games' fame among others.

(With inputs from agencies.)