JLF New York @ NAC

With hundreds of thousands of spectators worldwide, and mini-festivals from Houston to Doha, India’s 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, NAC will host the tenth edition of JLF New York, an international edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival —which celebrates conversation, bold ideas and exceptional storytelling, in the voices of speakers ranging from novelist Alka Joshi and curator Sonya Rhie Mace to Oppenheimer biographer Kai Bird.

Session 1 at 11 a.m.

Pahari Paintings: Art and Stories – Sonya Rhie Mace in conversation with Molly Emma Aitken

Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, the Pahari kingdoms of the northwestern Himalayas created a luminous world of painting—intimate, expressive and richly coloured. In this richly illustrated session, celebrated curator Sonya Rhie Mace explores a remarkably dispersed collection that offers new ways of seeing these works. Moving beyond questions of attribution, the conversation with art historian and professor Molly Emma Aitken, traces artists, patrons and practices across regions, revealing a shared visual culture shaped by movement and exchange.