SynopsisIt is 1798 and Richard Dawson, an English painter, has arrived on the southern coast of India, looking for employment. Finding his fellow countrymen unhelpful, he boldly travels to the kingdom of Tipu Sultan to catch history in the making. Though reputedly cruel to the British, Tipu allows Richard to stay at his fort in Srirangapatna, much to the resentment of his courtiers. As Richard and his apprentice, a runaway Brahmin boy called Mukunda, experiment with Indian and Western styles of painting, they find themselves drawn into a high-stakes political intrigue. Devised by the women of the former royal family of Mysore, the Wodeyars, and catalysed by the striking Suhasini, this plan to oust Tipu must involve active support from Richard and Mukunda. Both painters fall under the spell of the elusive Suhasini, even as their paintings become the unexpected crux of the last Anglo-Mysore War.
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About the author
Post graduate in Mass Communication from Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, an MPhil in Creative Writing from Swansea University in the United Kingdom and a PhD in English from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in the United States Gayathri Prabhu is an Indian novelist presently living in Manipal Karnataka.
She presently teaches at the Manipal Centre for Humanities (MAHE). She has authored novels The Untitled ,Birdswim Fishfly and Maya (Indialog Publications, 2003). Recenty Gayathri has been awarded R K Narayan Award for Literature 2019 . Earlier she has won the prestigious Vreeland Award at the University of Nebraska for best creative manuscript in 2011. In 2018 her memoir If I Had To Tell It Again was shortlisted for famous Atta Galatta Bangalore Literature Festiva; in Sept. 2018. She was also among the five short listed authors for prestigious Sushila Devi literature Award for ‘The Best Book Of Fiction Written by A Woman Author In English & published in 2016 & 2017.
Vetaal and Vikram: Riddles of the Undead is her latest novel. It is a playful retelling of the stories Indians have been reading since childhood in ‘Chandamama’ or being told and retold through generations. She has wit fully taken back the retelling where Lord Shiva tells his best story to Parvati and thus make Shiva the sutradhaar or the prompter.
'If I Had to Tell it Again', the memoir was longlisted under the category of Best Non Fiction (English) in the Atta Galatta Bangalore Literature Festival in September 2018.[40] Prabhu was shortlisted as one of the five authors for the prestigious Sushila Devi Literature Award For 'The Best Book Of Fiction Written By A Woman Author', in English and publish.