Jaipur Literature Festival 2022 | Correcting history and helping the world

The 15th edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival is being held from March 4-14, 2022; and (right) Oslo-born British bioarchaeologist Cat Jarman is the author of 'River Kings The Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads'.

Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson's daily life is a mix of writing about nature and walking in a nearby forest. The Norwegian author's new book is a cry for help on behalf of the millions of species in the world nobody cares about. "The forest is one of my favourite places. There is so much secret life hidden there," says Sverdrup-Thygeson, whose Tapestries of Life: Uncovering the Lifesaving Secrets of the Natural World is a manifesto for saving the earth's rich biodiversity.

Cat Jarman spends the working days analyzing ancient skeletons in her university's laboratory to understand the history of humans that existed long before us. The bioarchaeologist stepped out of the lab three years ago to travel to Gujarat to investigate where the Vikings were buying their colourful carnelian beads from. Jarman's new book, River Kings: The Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads, explains that the Vikings were smart entrepreneurs with trade links with the East, not mere plunderers of wealth.

Sverdrup-Thygeson and Jarman, both speakers at the 15th edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), represent a new generation of writers who are redefining the way words are written and read. Along with many other fellow women writers who are pushing the boundaries of books, research and academic work, they make it clear to the world that literature and literary festivals benefit when women tell the stories.

"I love insects," says Sverdrup-Thygeson, who talked about her book in an online session at the JLF, being held this year from March 4 to 14 in a hybrid format. Tapestries of Life, which contains chapters like 'drugs from bugs' and 'sea is the last healthy part of a sick world', explains why. For her, termites are not destroyers, but builders who hold up life in many parts of the world. "Things that are a nuisance in the house are vital in nature," she writes. "In the semi-desert and savannah environment, termites can be crucial organisms, contributing to both fertilisation and irrigation."

Tapestries of Life, which has a quote from Arundhati Roy in its afterword ("Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing"), says while the number of people on the planet has doubled in the last half-century, one in eight of the millions of species that help save our life are facing extinction. She believes women writers, especially scientist-writers, are bringing in a different perspective of the world. "Women scientists shine a new light on vital scientific developments," she adds.

The Oslo-born Jarman, who now lives in England's Somerset county, discovered the trade ties between the Vikings and the East by accident. Numerous objects excavated from a Viking gravesite in the United Kingdom 40 years ago were lying unexplained until Jarman was called in. Examining the ancient artefacts, she found a decorative carnelian bead that originated in India. "There were lots of boxes containing many objects and there I found this one bead. And I realised how significant it was. Forty years ago when it was found, nobody had realised the importance of this bead," says Jarman, who arrived in Khambhat in Gujarat's Ratanpur area three years ago to confirm her findings that the carnelian bead had reached the hands of the Vikings from India.

Growing up in the Norwegian capital Oslo, Carman would stare at the "perfectly preserved huge Viking ships" in disbelief during her weekend visits with parents to the city museum as a school girl. "I knew I wanted to write a book about the Vikings. The beads from Gujarat helped me find an angle, a new way of telling the story," she says. River Kings also seeks to change the narrative on Vikings women. "We used to think that women were not part of the Vikings' society. But we now know, thanks to bioarchaeology, women were migrating. They were not sitting at home, they were also going abroad," says Jarman.

Among the prominent speakers at the JLF this year are many women writers whose research and work is helping change beliefs and the centuries-old male-centric narrative about the world. American-British historian Katherine Pangonis writes about the important role of women rulers in the tinderbox of the medieval Middle East during the Crusades in her first book, Queens of Jerusalem: The Women Who Dared to Rule, facts historians had overlooked for centuries. "Aristocratic women in Jerusalem, Antioch, Tripoli and Edessa represented a major force in the politics of the medieval Middle East," writes Pangonis. "Despite this, more often than not women of their status in this period have been regarded by historians as little more than transmitters of lands and broodmares for the next generation of kings," she adds.

Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson (left)

Pangonis writes about powerful rulers like Queen Melisende of Jerusalem and Queen Silbylla of Jerusalem, who made major military decisions and were involved in important architectural projects. "We are not making heroines out of them. But ensuring they are not sidelined when we write the history of the Crusades," says the Beirut-based Pangonis, who couldn't understand as a school student in the United Kingdom why there was nothing written on women rulers during the Crusaders in their syllabus. "Then I went to the university and still there was no mention of women rulers. I said, 'Okay, I want to fix this'."

If Pangonis corrects medieval history and the role of women in power, British archaeologist Rebecca Wrag Sykes highlights the lack of visibility of women archaeologists today. Known for co-founding the TrowelBlazers project that brings together women archaeologists, Sykes, the author of books like the award-winning Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, exposes the complete dominance of male researchers in geology, palaeontology and archaeology. Voice of Rebellion: How Mozhdah Jamalzadah Brought Hope to Afghanistan by Canadian writer Roberta Staley tells the story of the Afghani singer and TV host known as the 'Oprah of Afghanistan' who showed the way to her fellow country women through her struggle and work.

Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds by Huma Abedin, the former top political aide to Hillary Clinton, talks about the life of an immigrant in the United States, women's rights, religion and power in her book that details her journey across continents. Kala Ramesh, the author of Beyond the Horizon Beyond: Haiku and Haibun, who has been teaching haiku to Indian students for over a decade, is another prominent speaker at the JLF this year.