Editions

Ka

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780241399224

  • Length: 432  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 24mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 315g

  • RRP: £10.99

Ka

'To read Ka is to experience a giddy invasion of stories - brilliant, enigmatic, troubling, outrageous, erotic, beautiful' The New York Times

'Who?' - or 'ka' - is the question that runs through Roberto Calasso's retelling of the stories of the minds and gods of India; the primordial question that continues to haunt human existence. From the Rigveda to the Upanishads, the Mahabharata to the life of Buddha, this book delves into the corpus of classical Sanskrit literature to re-imagine the ancient Indian myths and how they resonate through space and time.

'The very best book about Hindu mythology that anyone has ever written' Wendy Doniger

'Dazzling, complex, utterly original ... Ka is his masterpiece' Sunday Times

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780241399224

  • Length: 432  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 24mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 315g

  • RRP: £10.99

Reviews

  • If you want a dazzling, complex, erotic and utterly original European novel of ideas, Calasso is your man, and Ka his masterpiece

    Sunday Times

  • To read Ka is to experience a giddy invasion of stories - brilliant, enigmatic, troubling, outrageous, erotic, beautiful ... these stories are superbly narrated

    Sunil Khilnani, New York Times Book Review

  • Passage[s] of such ecstatic insight and cross-cultural synthesis-simply, of such beauty

    The New York Review of Books

  • The very best book about Hindu mythology that anyone has ever written ... A magnificent reading of Hindu texts. Its power arises in part through strong, vivid writing and in part through stunning, unexpected metaphors

    Wendy Doniger, The New Republic

  • Magnificent ... A moving, exhilarating, extraordinary book ... An astonishing synthesis of myths and legends, philosophical inquiry, and speculative narrative

    Shashi Tharoor, Washington Post Book World

  • A scintillatingly challenging book ... Its opening sentences are as startling as any in all of literature

    Thomas McGonigle, Los Angeles Times

  • All is spectacle and delight, and tiny mirrors reflecting human foibles are set into the weave, turning this retelling into the stuff of literature ... Calasso's erudition and his capacity for invention appear to be limitless

    The New Yorker

More in this Series

View all View all
View all View all

About the Author

Roberto Calasso

Roberto Calasso is the author of an ongoing series of books which began with The Ruin of Kasch and includes the international bestseller The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Ka, K., Tiepolo Pink, La Folie Baudelaire, Ardor, The Celestial Hunter and The Unnamable Present. He lives in Milan.

Roberto Calasso

Our Use of Cookies

We use cookies on this site to enable certain parts of the site to function and to collect information about your use of the site so that we can improve our visitors’ experience.

For more on our cookies and changing your settings click here

Strictly Necessary

Strictly Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions. See More.

Analytics

Analytics cookies help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. These cookies may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services we have added to our pages. See More.

Preferences & Features

Preference and Feature cookies allow our website to remember choices you make, such as your language preferences and any customisations you make to pages on our website during your visit. See More.

Targeting / Advertising

Targeting cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you and your interests. They perform functions like preventing the same content from reappearing, ensuring ads are displayed and, in some cases, selecting content based on your interests. See More.