Salman Rushdie

The epic tale of a woman who breathes a fantastical empire into existence, only to be consumed by it over the centuries - from the transcendent imagination of Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie. In the wake of an insignificant 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 the 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 - literally 'victory city' -the wonder of the world. Over the next two hundred and fifty years, Pampa Kampana's life becomes deeply interwoven with Bisnaga's, from its literal sowing out of 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 centre. Brilliantly styled as a translation of an ancient epic, this is a saga of love, adventure and myth that is in itself a testament to the power of storytelling.

Victory City

Laura Mei

When he spoke he used a soft voice, so that his answer had to be repeated many times, the words rippling out across the multitude like waves on the surface of the sea. "There is 𝘉𝘳𝘢𝘩𝘮𝘢𝘯," he said, "who is the ultimate and only reality, who is both cause and effect, who does not change but in whom all change is contained. And there is 𝘢𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘯, which is in everything that lives, which is the only true thing in everything that lives, which is in fact the only thing that lives, and which is one hundred and one percent the same as 𝘉𝘳𝘢𝘩𝘮𝘢𝘯. Identical. Same to same. Everything else is illusion: space, time, power, love, place, home, music, beauty, prayer. Illusion. There are only the two, which are one."

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