About Book
Folklore pervades childhoods, families and communities and is the language of the illiterate. Even in large, modern cities, folklore—proverbs, lullabies, folk medicine, folktales—is only a suburb away, a cousin or a grandmother away. Wherever people live, folklore grows. India is a country of many languages, religions, sects and cultures. It is a land of many myths and countless stories.
Translated from twenty-two Indian languages, these one hundred and ten tales cover most of the regions of India and represent favourite narratives from the subcontinent. A.K. Ramanujan’s outstanding selection is an indispensable guide to the richness and vitality of India’s ageless oral folklore tradition.
About Author
A.K. Ramanujan was an award-winning translator and poet whose translations, poetry and essays have been widely published and anthologized. These include Hymns for the Drowning and Speaking of Siva, both of which are published by Penguin. He was the William E. Colvin Professor of South Asian Languages, Civilizations and Linguistics, and a member of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.
A.K. Ramanujan died in Chicago in 1993.