Karna: The Great Warrior
About this ebook
'Who am I?' It was a question that had troubled him all his life. His whole life had seemed entangled in the answer. His dignity, his destination, his ambitions -- they all seemed linked to that entanglement. The irony was that the truth, instead of liberating him, had made him rudderless. In the Mahabharata, Karna is known to be the only warrior who could match Arjuna. Born of a god and a mother who abandons him at birth, Karna is mistreated from birth. Rejected by Drona, taunted by Draupadi, insulted by his blood brothers, misunderstood by many and manipulated even by the gods, Karna is the classic tragic hero. In his novel Radheya, Ranjit Desai, the author of Marathi classics like Shriman Yogi and Swami, gives voice to the angst and loneliness of Karna. Translated into English for the first time, the novel brings to surface the many sides to Karna's character: his compassionate nature, his hurt and hubris, the love for his wife, his allegiance to Duryodhana, and his complicated relationship with Krishna.
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About the author
Ranjit Desai (8 April 1928-6 March 1992) was born in Kolhapur district, Maharashtra. Biographical novels were his forte. His most famous works are Morpankhi Sawalya, Shriman Yogi and Swami, based on the life of Madhavrao Peshwa, the third Peshwa. He won the Maharashtra Rajya Award (1963), Hari Narayan Apte Award (1963), the Sahitya Akademi Award (1964) and the Padmshri from the Government of India (1973).
Vikrant Pande has published fourteen translations till date, many of them bestsellers, like Ranjit Desai's Shivaji: The Great Maratha (HarperCollins) and Girish Kuber's Tatayan, published as The Tatas: The Family That Built a Business and a Nation (HarperCollins), which won the Gaja Capital Business Book Prize for 2019. He cowrote, with Neelesh Kulkarni, In the Footsteps of Rama: Travels with the Ramayana (HarperCollins), a travelogue containing unknown stories of Ramayana, which is now being made into a travel show by a top OTT producer, as well as Akashvani: A Century of Stories from All India Radio (HarperCollins). He also authored The SBI Story: 200 Years of Banking (Westland Publications). He is currently working on an account of fascinating operations done by the special forces (HarperCollins). A graduate of IIM Bangalore, Vikrant Pande enjoyed twenty-five successful years in his corporate career before turning to writing full-time.
