1. Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951) was one of India’s most important artists and led the influential Bengal School of Art. A member of the Tagore family, he was also a well-regarded writer, especially known for his children’s books which includes the classic Raj Kahini. 2. Sandipan Deb became a published author at the age of eight when one of his stories was printed in Sandesh, the Bangla children’s magazine edited by Satyajit Ray. Since then his writings have ranged from business to cricket, cinema to artificial intelligence. He has been editor of the Financial Express, managing editor of Outlook, and founding editor of Outlook Money, Open and Swarajya magazines. An IIT-IIM alumnus, he is the author of several books, including The IITians: The Story of an Extraordinary Indian Institution and How Its Alumni Are Reshaping the World, Fallen Angel: The Making and Unmaking of Rajat Gupta and The Last War, a re-imagining of the Mahabharata.
<p>For over a century, Abanindranath Tagore’s Raj Kahini has been among the most beloved works of Bangla literature. Mixing history and mythology with an extraordinary visual imagination, it tells the tales of the Suryavamsha – the Sun Dynasty that ruled Mewar. Here we meet Shiladitya, child of Sun God; Bappaditya, who builds an empire that stretches up to Persia; Hambir, the cheeky teenager who reclaims the of Mewar. We meet Padmini, the princess from Sri</p><p>Lanka who becomes a goddess; Mirabai, who renounces her kingdom to be with her child-god, Nandalala.</p><p>On every page, we are exposed to emotions that define the human condition – love, sacrifice, jealousy, courage, greed and treachery. Honour and loyalty clash with villainy and evil, and the better side does not always win. Epic in their sweep, universal in their essence, the stories are timeless. Suryavamshi is a translation and adaptation of Abanindranath’s classic for twenty-first-century India.</p>
