Video | Giving a voice to Adivasi literature at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2016: Adivaani’s co-founder and publisher Ruby Hembrom – Rajasthan

“Silence is not my mother tongue”– Ruby Hembrom, executive director, Aadivani, during the concluding session dedicated to the issue of freedom of speech in India. (reported by Tehelka.com, January 28, 2016)

“Equity and democracy run through the Festival’s veins, providing access for all to some of our greatest writers and thinkers along with a space to dare, dream and imagine; a powerful statement in a country where such opportunities remain the privilege of a few.” – Official Jaipur Festival website jaipurliteraturefestival.org >>

Ruby Hembrom is the founder and director of Adivaani, an archiving and publishing house of and by Adivasis. She is the author of We Came From Geese and Earth Rests On A Tortoise, both mythical stories about the origin of the Santhal tribe, and Disaibon Hul, a story on the Santhal rebellion of 1855-57. […]

Book cover: Disaibon Hul © Adivaani.org >>
Hul (Santal rebellion 1855-1856) | Santal Parganas | Tribal freedom fighters >>

Session Name: An Indian Reader – January 21, 2016
Speakers: Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee, Rita Kothari, Jerry Pinto, Shailesh Bharatwasi and Ruby Hembrom in conversation with Manisha Chaudhry

Festival sessions with Ruby Hembrom available on YouTube

Jaipur Literature Festival, Saturday, January 23, 2016

Time: 3:45 pm to 4:45 pm | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5nzUlqdnqI
Session No.: 98 (Baithak)
Session Name: Adivaani: The Indigenous Literature of India
Speakers: Hari Ram Meena, Ruby Hembrom and Peter Anderson in conversation with Mohini Gupta

Jaipur Literature Festival, Saturday, January 23, 2016

Time: 5:15 pm to 6:15 pm | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M-wfyso0_o
Session No.: 103 (Mughal Tent)
Session Name: A Room of One’s Own
Speakers: Ila Arab Mehta, Anuradha Roy, Ira Pande, Alka Saraogi, Ruby Hembrom in conversation with Anjum Hasan.

Press excerpts

Joeanna Rebello, Times of India, Jaipur, Jan 24, 2016

Jaipur : Are women writers afforded space and time to write, or the license to write what they want, is what a panel of them debated Why is it that some readers scoff at ‘chicklit’ and venerate war novels (invariably written by men)? Are both not encompassing of the human experience, and who’s to say love or betrayal are lesser subjects than valour and victory?

The women chewing creatively on this cud were all established writers, editors and publishers who asked themselves whether woman writers had a room of their own – referring not only to a physical space, but a social expanse that permitted writing of any kind.”There is a sense that the ‘big’ male narratives are valorised above the emotional themes women may adopt,” pointed out DSC Prize winner Anuradha Roy , “When women write stories about emotion, they’re instantly trivialised.” […]

The topic – a reference to a Virginia Woolf essay – found a different subtext in the views of publisher Ruby Hembrom, who publishes adivasi writing. “For us it’s not so much about having a room of one’s own, as a roof over our head,” Hembrom declared, foregrounding the imperatives that undergird adivasi literature as a writing of affirmation and agency, not luxury. […]

Source: Room with a view – Times of India
Address: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Room-with-a-view/articleshow/50702915.cms
Date Visited: Sun Feb 28 2016 12:08:08 GMT+0100 (CET)

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