Original language:
English Translated from: English
Authors: Sundaresan, Indu
Translated by: Žalytė, Danguolė
ISBN: 978-955-38-733-6
Published in: Vilnius
Published on: 2010
Publisher: Alma littera
Link::
(Lietuvių) www.almalittera.lt
Sundaresan (The Twentieth Wife ) returns to 17th-century India in this romantic fictionalization of the life of Jahanara, the oldest child of the empress Mumtaz Mahal, Shah Jahan’s cherished wife. Mumtaz dies in childbirth, leaving four sons, two teenage daughters and a newborn girl. The grief-stricken emperor seeks consolation in the construction of the Taj, the magnificent Luminous Tomb, while the profundity of his mourning exposes his fallibility to his sons, who begin eyeing his throne. Jahanara and her sister Roshanara choose to back different brothers, and they compete to rule in both the royal harem and their father’s heart. Before long, Jahanara is the one who succeeds as the emperor’s closest confidante, and he refuses to allow her to leave him to marry.
Sundaresan has a scholar’s fascination with the period; she’s at her best describing the opulent court or the construction of the Taj Mahal. Little is known about the actual Jahanara, and Sundaresan has blessed the princess’s fictional proxy with such perfection that readers will be tempted to find her flawed siblings not only more believable but also more interesting.
Meticulously researched, and set amidst the splendor and luxury of the world’s most opulent court, “Shadow Princess” is Sundaresan’s best work yet, a tale of a lone woman who is powerful, rich, omnipotent in her father’s harem, but who fails to turn the course of India’s history, and has to find her happiness in unconventional ways.
This novel is about Shah Jahan tenure, Taj Mahal construction and Mumtaz Mahal children fate. It is about gorgeous, cruel and colorful Mughal Indian history page.
This book is fiction work. Names, characters, places, events are author imagination or used as craft supplies. Any similarity to real events, places or persons are totally random.