Showing results by author "Amit Majmudar" in All Categories

This is the first part of a trilogy on the Mahabharata. Grounded in the original Sanskrit epic, Majmudar recreates the ancient epic for a contemporary audience. It is his finest work yet and is one of the most accessible, magical and compelling retellings of the Mahabharata. The Book of Vows will be followed by The Book of Discoveries and The Book of Killings.

Born in the United States into a secularized Hindu family, Amit Majmudar puzzled over the many religious traditions on offer and found that the Bhagavad-Gita had much to teach him with its "song of multiplicities". Chief among them is that "its own assertions aren't as important as the relationships between its characters... The Gita imagined a relationship in which the soul and God are equals". It is, he believes, "the greatest poem of friendship...in any language".

Countless retellings, translations, and reworkings of the Ramayana's captivating story exist - but none are as vivid, ingenious, and powerful as Amit Majmudar's Sitayana. Majmudar tells the story of one of the world's most popular epics through multiple perspectives, presented in rapid sequence - from Hanuman and Ravana, down to even the squirrel helping Rama's army build the bridge. However, above all, Majmudar focuses on the fierce resistance of Sita, letting us hear her voice as we have never heard it before.  

With his dazzling ability to set words spinning, Amit Majmudar brings us poems that sharpen both wit and knives as he examines our "life in solitary". Equally engaged with human history and the human heart, Majmudar transfigures identity from a locus of captivity to the open field of his liberation....