The Garden of Tales: The Best of Vijaydan Detha

HarperCollins

presents

The Garden of Tales

The Best of Vijaydan Detha

By

Vijaydan Detha

Translated by Vishes Kothari

 

Vijaydan Detha is undoubtedly the most important writer of Rajasthani prose in the twentieth century. He draws the reader into the complex and quirky world of the common folk of Rajasthan, while bringing alive the magic of folklore and fable. 

His stories have been made into popular and critically acclaimed films like Duvidha, Charandas Chor and Paheli.

Published by Harper Perennial

Paperback | 368 pp | Rs 499

Available wherever books are sold | Releasing 6^th Feb 2023

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A whirlpool – that is what I would call Vijaydan Detha’s stories, for I was just pulled into them and completely absorbed. Vividly imagined, beautifully narrated, highly entertaining, these stories are magic spread across words and pages’  —  HANSDA SOWVENDRA SHEKHAR

 

‘Oral and written literary traditions converge in Detha’s stories, challenging our assumptions about modernity and morality. These translations are essential reading’ — ARUNAVA SINHA

 

About the Book

A seth who lends money by mortgaging the borrower’s next birth…

A bride who, after the wedding, discovers her husband is actually a woman…

A jogi dwelling in the skies who quells his lust by imprisoning women in his Cloud Palace… 

Vijaydan Detha is undoubtedly the most important writer of Rajasthani prose in the twentieth century. He draws the reader into the complex and quirky world of the common folk of Rajasthan, while bringing alive the magic of folklore and fable. Traversing landscapes that are both earthly and cosmic, his tales, while being about the rich and poor, the saint and sinner, are also populated by trees, animals, the wind and the rain, gods and goddesses, and even ghosts. And between them, they explore humanity in all its myriad manifestations: love and desire, innocence and cunning, wisdom and folly, greed and deceit, righteousness, valour and the illusion of power.

Translated masterfully by Vishes Kothari, The Garden of Tales is a definitive selection of Detha’s work that will amuse and absorb you until the very last page.

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About the Author and the Translator

Vijaydan Detha (1926–2013) is one of the most prolific and celebrated voices in India and is undoubtedly the most important writer of Rajasthani prose in the twentieth century. He spent decades of his life collecting folk stories from in and around his village Borunda and retelling them. His work received national and international acclaim – he was awarded the Padma Shri, the Rajasthan Ratna Award and the Sahitya Akademi Award among various others. Detha’s timeless classics have been adapted into major plays and movies, some notable names being Duvidha, Charandas Chor and Paheli.

Vishes Kothari has a keen interest in the oral, musical and literary traditions of Rajasthan. His first book of translations of Vijaydan Detha’s stories, titled Timeless Tales from Marwar, was published by Penguin Random House in 2020. He has led the creation of the digital archive of Rajasthani literature and oral traditions, Anjas. He is also a Founding Trustee of the Rajasthani Bhasha Academy.

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For reviews, excerpts, interviews, and more information, please contact Vandana Rathore at
vandana.rathore@harpercollins.co.in