Description
Book SynopsisThe Story of Manu, by sixteenth-century poet Allasani Peddana, is the definitive literary monument of Telugu civilization and a powerful embodiment of the culture of Vijayanagara, the last of the great premodern south Indian states. It describes kingship and its exigencies at the time of Krishnadevaraya, Peddana’s close friend and patron.
Trade ReviewEloquently outlining
Peddana’s groundbreaking innovations and his acute awareness of himself as an innovator, the terrific introduction by the translators Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman makes the point that: ‘We might think of Peddana, like Dante, as the epitome of an entire civilizational moment.’ -- Neel Mukherjee * New Statesman *
Throbs with worldliness in its vivacious medley of prose and poetry…
V. N. Rao and
David Shulman’s nimble translation makes what otherwise might have been a baroque and chaotic text a pleasure to read. It also gives readers access to historical literature from southern India, a region whose written traditions rarely win the same national recognition as those from the North. -- Kanish Tharoor * Los Angeles Review of Books *
The Story of Manu, translated for the first time into any language, gives a much wider readership access to [
Peddana’s] masterful, lyrical wordsmithery. It also affords, through its plot, a rare glimpse into the political and religious philosophy of its times. -- Pragya Tiwari * India at LSE blog *
Few Western poets have been so audacious and unconventional. -- Roberto Calasso * New York Review of Books *
