A rigged game of dice brings the 100 Kaurava princes, led by the scheming Duryodhana, to the battlefield against their cousins, the five Pandavas - the noble but gullible Yudhishthira, the mighty Bhima, master archer Arjuna and the twins, Nakula and Sahadeva. The epic war of Kurukshetra, which lasted 18 tragic days, pitted brother against brother, uncle against nephew and disciple against teacher. The intense battles between warriors equally fearless and skilled - Bhima and Duryodhana, Arjuna and Bheeshma, Drona and Dhrishtadyumna, and Karna and Arjuna - were as much conflicts of loyalty and ambition as they were of choices. The side they chose to support, or fight against, led them into a labyrinth of duty and destiny, where both the defeated and the victorious lost something or someone precious to them. This classic retelling of the Mahabharata, was written especially for young readers by the inimitable Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, and originally checked and proofed by none other than Rabindranath Tagore. Translated for the first time into English by leading children's writer and translator, Swapna Dutta, this eternal tale is brought to life in all its drama and detail.

 

This book has been graded for interest at 10-16 years.

There are 233 pages in this book. This book was published 2015 by Hachette Book Publishing India Pvt Ltd .

Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury (1863-1915) was a famous Bengali writer, painter, violinist, composer, technologist and entrepreneur. He was born on 10 May 1863 in a little village called Moshua in Mymensingh District in Bengal, now in Bangladesh. He spent most of his adult life in Kolkata, where he died on 20 December 1915, aged only fifty-two. He was the father of the well-known writer Sukumar Ray and grandfather of the renowned filmmaker Satyajit Ray. As a writer Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury is best known for his retelling of epics and folklore; as a printer he pioneered the art of engraving and colour printing in India at the time when both were also being first tried in the West. Swapna Dutta has been writing and translating, mostly for children, for the last four decades and has more than 40 titles to her credit, including translations. She has been published by HarperCollins, Scholastic, Orient Longman, Rupa, Children's Book Trust and National Book Trust, among others.