Velcheru Narayana Rao is the Krishnadevaraya Emeritus Professor of Languages and Cultures of Asia at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. David Shulman is Renee Lang Professor of Humanistic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Eloquently outlining Peddana’s groundbreaking innovations and his
acute awareness of himself as an innovator, the terrific
introduction by the translators Velcheru Narayana Rao and David
Shulman makes the point that: ‘We might think of Peddana, like
Dante, as the epitome of an entire civilizational moment.’
*New Statesman*
Throbs with worldliness in its vivacious medley of prose and
poetry… V. N. Rao and David Shulman’s nimble translation makes what
otherwise might have been a baroque and chaotic text a pleasure to
read. It also gives readers access to historical literature from
southern India, a region whose written traditions rarely win the
same national recognition as those from the North.
*Los Angeles Review of Books*
The Story of Manu, translated for the first time into any language,
gives a much wider readership access to [Peddana’s] masterful,
lyrical wordsmithery. It also affords, through its plot, a rare
glimpse into the political and religious philosophy of its
times.
*India at LSE blog*
Few Western poets have been so audacious and unconventional.
*New York Review of Books*
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