The Palace of Illusions
The Palace of Illusions: A Novel is a 2008 novel by award-winning novelist and poet Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. It was released by Doubleday.
The novel is a rendition of the Hindu epic Mahabharata as told from Draupadi's (Panchaali's) viewpoint, namely, that of a woman living in a patriarchal world. As Booklist summarizes the plot, "Smart, resilient, and courageous Panchaali, born of fire, marries all five of the famously heroic Pandava brothers, harbors a secret love, endures a long exile in the wilderness, instigates a catastrophic war, and slowly learns the truth about Krishna, her mysterious friend."[1]
Chapters of the book are following:-
- Fire
- Blue
- Milk
- Cosmology
- Smoke
- Incarnations
- Fish
- Sorceress
- Portrait
- Births
- Scorpion
- Song
- Scar
- Brinjal
- Lac
- Boon
- Grandfather
- River
- Palace
- Wives
- Afterlife
- Discus
- Lake
- Games
- Sari
- Rice
- Tales
- Lotus
- Visitations
- Disguise
- Preparation
- Field
- Right
- Secrets
- Avalanche
- Wheel
- Owl
- Pyre
- Ash
- Snake
- Reed
- Snow
- Fire
Reviews
- "...it's really intriguing to find a book that deals differently with Draupadi - not a Manushi article or a Gender Studies tract on 'Mythical Women and Agency', but a proper story, like Vyasa's epic, where Draupadi begins. ... The 'mysterious woman' style of narration is unmistakably Divakaruni's." Renuka Narayanan, Hindustan Times[2]
- "Is Divakaruni's novel a usefully accessible version of a remote cultural artifact, or a case of forcing a remarkable quart into a conventional pint pot?" Elsbeth Lindner, San Francisco Chronicle[3]
- Palace of Illusions on Scribbles of Soul
- Book Review : The Palace of Illusions - July 16, 2015
- Book Review: The Palace of Illusions
See also
- ^ "The palace of illusions : a novel". Buffalo and Erie County Public Library. Retrieved 19 August 2016.
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on July 1, 2011. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-02-12/entertainment/17139479_1_chitra-banerjee-divakaruni-novel-indian-epic
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