Victory City: A Novel by Salmam Rushdie- 2023 -336 Pages
A New York Times Best Seller
I have been an avid reader of Salman Rushdie for 12 years. Victory City lived up to my very high expectations
Brilliantly structured as a translation of an ancient epic, Victory City is a saga of love, adventure, and myth that is in itself a testament to the power of storytelling. It is steeped in reimagined Indian History and classic epics.
"In the wake of an unimportant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in fourteenth-century southern India, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. After witnessing the death of her mother, the grief-stricken Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for a goddess, who begins to speak out of the girl’s mouth. Granting her powers beyond Pampa Kampana’s comprehension, the goddess tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga—“victory city”—the wonder of the world.
Over the next 250 years, Pampa Kampana’s life becomes deeply interwoven with Bisnaga’s, from its literal sowing from a bag of magic seeds to its tragic ruination in the most human of ways: the hubris of those in power. Whispering Bisnaga and its citizens into existence, Pampa Kampana attempts to make good on the task that the goddess set for her: to give women equal agency in a patriarchal world. But all stories have a way of getting away from their creator, and Bisnaga is no exception. As years pass, rulers come and go, battles are won and lost, and allegiances shift, the very fabric of Bisnaga becomes an ever more complex tapestry—with Pampa Kampana at its center." From the Publisher"
There are numerous themes in Victory City, the transience of power, love and beauty. The impact of losing those we love. The various religious ideologies of the period are portrayed. Some rulers are kind but most are cruel. Millions die for their Vanity.
Victory City is a very creative highly imaginative work.
Mel Ulm
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