Ka

(Paperback)

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Description

A remarkable retelling of Hindu mythology, from one of Europe's greatest literary figures In Ka, Roberto Calasso delves into the corpus of classical Sanskrit literature recreating and re-imagining the enchanting world of ancient India. Beginning with the Rig-Veda, Ka weaves together myths from the Upanishad, the Mahabharata and the stories of the Buddha, all of which pose questions that have haunted us for millennia.

Reviews

If you want a dazzling, complex, erotic and utterly original European novel of ideas, Calasso is your man, and Ka his masterpiece * Sunday Times *
To read Ka is to experience a giddy invasion of stories - brilliant, enigmatic, troubling, outrageous, erotic, beautiful ... these stories are superbly narrated -- Sunil Khilnani * New York Times Book Review *
Passage[s] of such ecstatic insight and cross-cultural synthesis-simply, of such beauty * The New York Review of Books *
The very best book about Hindu mythology that anyone has ever written ... A magnificent reading of Hindu texts. Its power arises in part through strong, vivid writing and in part through stunning, unexpected metaphors -- Wendy Doniger * The New Republic *
Magnificent ... A moving, exhilarating, extraordinary book ... An astonishing synthesis of myths and legends, philosophical inquiry, and speculative narrative -- Shashi Tharoor * Washington Post Book World *
A scintillatingly challenging book ... Its opening sentences are as startling as any in all of literature -- Thomas McGonigle * Los Angeles Times *
All is spectacle and delight, and tiny mirrors reflecting human foibles are set into the weave, turning this retelling into the stuff of literature ... Calasso's erudition and his capacity for invention appear to be limitless * The New Yorker *

Author Bio

Roberto Calasso was born in Florence in 1941. An author and publisher, he began working at Adelphi Edizioni from its founding in 1962 and continued as director for fifty years. The Book of All Books is the tenth part of a series that began with The Ruin of Kasch and includes the international bestseller The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony as well as Ka, K., Tiepolo Pink, La Folie Baudelaire, Ardor, The Celestial Hunter and The Unnamable Present. He died in Milan in 2021.