A pool of age-old spirituality, myths and legends, a crucible of civilisations and languages, India is today asserting itself as the second industrial power in Asia, even if it has to tackle harrowing contradictions between poverty and new wealth, tradition and modernity.

Compared to the emigrant writers who recount the divides of those who, having abandoned their country of origin, have decided to live in the West, the 2010 Fair wants to give priority to writers who have stayed in their country, to live and describe a reality going through tumultuous evolution.

Alongside female writers widely appreciated in the West, such as Kiran Desai and Anita Nair, there will also be Vikas Swarup, the diplomat-writer who has found worldwide fame through the film Slumdog Millionaire taken from his novel; and writers who courageously examine the failings of a development that accentuates inequality and injustice, such as Indra Sinha (who dedicated a book to the disaster of Bhophal), Tarun Tejpal (the “Indian Saviano “), Altaf Tyrewala, Kiran Nagarkar, and Ambarish Satwik.

The writer and psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar, the author of the The Indians (Neri Pozza) will give the inaugural talk.

The presence of women is highly significant, with emerging authors who are also asserting themselves in the West for their sensibility and subtle analysis, such as Tishani Doshi, Anuradha Roy, Radhika Jha, Namita Davidayal and Shobhaa Dé. Doshi and Jha will also provide dance performances, of which they are talented protagonists, while Davidayal’s novel has a musical setting and Dé is a very popular author of successful romance novels.

The courageous feminist activist Sampat Devi will also be in Turin. She is the founder of the “Pink Sari” movement, which for years has fought against the violence and injustice that continue to relegate Indian women to a lower status. The young artist Amruta Patil will present a harsh metropolitan graphic novel, a genre that is gaining increasing popularity also in India.

But there will also be Western writers who, like Gregory David Roberts, author of a cult novel set in Bombay, Shantaram, have given memorable depictions of India. And the American doctor James Levine, who has devoted a novel to the drama of the exploitation of children (Piemme). The red saree will be presented, the biography that the Spanish writer Javier Moro has dedicated to the very Italian Sonia Gandhi. Pier Giorgio Odifreddi will talk on Indian mathematics, one of the country’s internationally recognised resources.

Alongside the narrators there will also be historians, journalists, ecologists and economists such as Prem Shankar Jha, also very well known in Italy, engaged in the analysis of the complex problems that link the globalised economies together, the environmental costs of development and the areas of extreme poverty. With him will be the Italian ambassador in Delhi Roberto Toscano and the economist Loretta Napoleoni. Other themes that will be discussed at Punto India are: the difficult relations between India and Islam, with Fouad K. Allam and Michelguglielmo Torri; the foundations of Indian spirituality, with authoritative scholars such as Stefano Piano and Fabio Scialpi; the languages of the subcontinent, from Sanskrit to Indian English, with Alessandro Monti, Stefano Piano, Irma Piovano director of the Cesmeo and Saverio Sani; the mnemonic techniques of the Pandits with Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat of the Institut de France; the legacy of Rabindranath Tagore with Reba Som, president of the Istituto Tagore. Finally, the Meridiano Mondadori publication dedicated to Hinduism and edited by Francesco Sferra will be presented.

Since the times of Guido Gozzano and Emilio Salgari, India has always had a leading role in the collective imagination of Italians. The round table “The India of the Italians” is dedicated to the representations of India that Italian writers have given, from Salgari to Terzani, with Giovanni Tesio, Giorgio Ficara and Giuseppe Cederna. Roberto Calasso, author of Kha, a best-seller also in India, will then hold a lecture that draws on the ancient myths of the country, entitled Dalle avventure di Mente e Parola.