HarperCollins India is proud to announce that it has acquired the publishing rights for Arshia Sattar’s classic works

Arshia Sattar’s translation of the Valmiki Ramayana; Uttara: The Book of Answers; Lost Loves: Exploring Rama’s Anguish; and Tales from the Kathasaritasagara by Somadev, will be published by HarperCollins India.

HCI will also be publishing Arshia Sattar’s newest book, Treta – a collection of essays on the Ramayana.

Ramayana, Uttara and Lost Loves will be published in 2019, and Tales from the Kathasaritasagara will be published in a revised and expanded edition in 2020.

Treta is forthcoming in 2020.

Udayan Mitra, Publisher – Literary at HarperCollins India says: Arshia Sattar is one of the greatest classical scholars and translators of our time, and we at HarperCollins are immensely proud to be publishing her classic translations of the Ramayana and Uttara, and Lost Loves, her thought-provoking book of essays on the Ramayana, in 2019. A new book of writings on the Ramayana, Treta, will follow in 2020, alongside a new edition of Arshia’s wonderful translation of the Kathasaritasagara. The Ramayana, Uttara and the Kathasaritasagara will sit very well alongside the many accomplished works of translation in the Harper Perennial list. We are really excited about bringing Arshia’s terrific work to readers in a new avatar.

Arshia Sattar says: I am extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to look at my past work with the new eyes and ears and hearts that HarperCollins will bring to my translation of the Ramayana and its allied books. I look forward to our relationship, not just for the books already published, but for the books that we will do together. It is, indeed, a happy new year for me.

ABOUT THE BOOKS:

Dr Sattar is a formidable Sanskrit scholar who writes expressive English prose, two qualities rarely combined in one person. – Velcheru Narayana Rao

 The Ramayana by Valmiki

First published in 1996, this classic work remains the definitive translation of the Valmiki Ramayana.

Of all the many translations of the Ramayana into English, Arshia Sattar’s is the only one that is both accurate and a pleasure to read. – Wendy Doniger

Uttara: The Book of Answers

A translation of the final and most problematic book of the Valmiki Ramayana, along with seven essays that brilliantly illuminate the text.

Arshia Sattar is already acknowledged as our most sensitive and perceptive translator of the Ramayana: her text glows with her love for the epic about this Most Perfect of Human Beings. Uttara however starts with an act of Rama’s which is difficult to condone and here, along with an equally nuanced and luminous translation, she takes us through subtle analyses of the moral and emotional ambiguities of Rama’s acts which make this text so disturbing. Riveting, even for those who, like me, were brought up on that epic – Girish Karnad

Lost Loves: Exploring Rama’s Anguish

The story of the Ramayana is a story of trial and tribulation, of the subtlety of right and wrong, of love and loss. This collection of essays is an attempt to come to terms with Rama and the Ramayana.

Sattar makes us realize how deeply conflicted Rama is, and therefore what a valuable guide he provides for contemporary mortals like us. – Wendy Doniger

Tales from the Kathasaritasagara by Somadeva

Compiled by the Kashmiri Saivite Brahmin, Somadeva, in AD 1070, this vast ocean of stories has influenced storytelling the world over. The colourful cast of characters – promiscuous married women, clever courtesans, imbecile Brahmins, incompetent kings, wise ministers, wicked mendicants, holy ascetics, evil creatures and friendly magical – all come alive in Arshia Sattar’s masterful translation of a selection of these tales.

Treta

In the essays that comprise Treta, Arshia Sattar explores the idea of dharma in the Ramayana, as seen in the words and actions of characters such as Dasharatha, Kausalya and Kaikeyi, Bharata and Lakshmana, Vali and Sugriva, Vibhishana, Swayamprabha, Shurpanakha and more. This timely work promises to be for the Ramayana what Irawati Karve’s seminal Yuganta was for the Mahabharata.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Arshia Sattar holds a PhD in South Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. She is the foremost scholar of the Ramayana and has been working and writing on the subject for nearly 30 years.