Mahabharata: A Modern Retelling

Originally composed approximately two thousand years ago, the Mahabharata tells the story of a royal dynasty, descended from gods, whose feud over their kingdom results in a devastating war. But it contains much more than conflict. An epic masterpiece of huge sweep and magisterial power, "a hundred times more interesting" than the Iliad and the Odyssey (writes Wendy Doniger in the introduction), the Mahabharata is a timeless work that evokes a world of myth, passion and warfare while exploring eternal questions of duty, love and spiritual freedom. A seminal Hindu text, which includes the Bhagavad Gita, it is also one of the most important and influential works in the history of world civilization.

Innovatively composed in blank verse rather than prose, Carole Satyamurti's English retelling covers all eighteen books of the Mahabharata. This new version masterfully captures the beauty, excitement and profundity of the original Sanskrit poem as well as its magnificent architecture and extraordinary scope.

About the Author

Carole Satyamurti (1939–2019) was a poet and social scientist. She published six collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Countdown. Her work has been widely anthologized and won numerous awards, including first prize in the National Poetry Competition, 1986, and a Cholmondeley Award in 2000. Mahabharata: A Modern Retelling, of which this volume is an abridgment, won the inaugural Roehampton Poetry Prize in 2015.

Dimensions: 13.97 x 4.06 x 21.08 cm