The banks of the Narmada River are said to contain 400 billion sacred places. It is this river, the holiest in India, that is the setting for Gita Mehta's lushly imagined novel, which fuses the traditions of Indian narrative with thoroughly contemporary insights into the nature of love - love carnal and sublime, treacherous, maddening, and redeeming.
Mehta's river is a place where travelers and their stories intersect unpredictably: where a millionaire mendicant comes to lay down the burden of his wealth; a sybaritic playboy wanders in a trance of erotic possessions; where an aging courtesan seeks her kidnapped daughter. Populated by bandits, naked ascetics, and ecstatic singers, A River Sutra is as intoxicating as the scent of sandal wood and as exalting as a classic raga.
Editorial Reviews
"Enchanting...somewhat comic, sometimes tragic and always filled with insights...A delight to read, bringing to Western readers the mystery and drama of a rich cultural heritage." -- The New York Times Book Review
"Evokes the Indian landscape so sharply that we can practically smell the night-blooming jasmine...the sense that things are richer and more meaningful than they seem, that life is both clear and mysterious, that the beauty and the horror of this world is irreducible and inexplicable." --Washington Post Book World
About the Author
Gita Mehta is the author of three works of non-ficiton, Karma Cola, Raj: A Novel, Snakes and Ladders and Eternal Ganesha, and two works of fiction, Raj and A River Sutra. She lives in New York, London and India.
