R.K. Narayan

The Mahabharata

Notify me when the book’s added
To read this book, upload an EPUB or FB2 file to Bookmate. How do I upload a book?
“Narayan makes this treasury of Indian folklore and mythology readily accessible to the general reader . . . he captures the spirit of the narrative.”—Library Journal
The Mahabharata tells a story of such violence and tragedy that many people in India refuse to keep the full text in their homes, fearing that doing so would invite a disastrous fate upon their house. Covering everything from creation to destruction, this ancient poem remains an indelible part of Hindu culture and a landmark in ancient literature.
Centuries of listeners and readers have been drawn to The Mahabharata, which began as disparate oral ballads and grew into a sprawling epic. The modern version is famously long, and at more than 1.8 million words—seven times the combined lengths of the Iliad and Odyssey—it can be incredibly daunting.
But contemporary readers have a much more accessible entry point to this important work, thanks to R. K. Narayan’s masterful, elegant translation and abridgement of the poem. Now with a new foreword by Wendy Doniger, as well as a concise character and place guide and a family tree, The Mahabharata is ready for a new generation of readers. Narayan ably distills a tale that is both traditional and constantly changing. He draws from both scholarly analysis and creative interpretation and vividly fuses the spiritual with the secular. Through this balance he has produced a translation that is not only clear, but graceful, one that stands as its own story as much as an adaptation of a larger work.
This book is currently unavailable
224 printed pages
Original publication
2016
Publication year
2016
Have you already read it? How did you like it?
👍👎

On the bookshelves

fb2epub
Drag & drop your files (not more than 5 at once)