Name: Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India
Price: 46.36 NZD
Availability: InStock
Author: Roberto Calasso
ISBN: 9780679775478

portada Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India

Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India

Type

Physical Book

Author

Roberto Calasso

Publisher

Vintage

Year

1999

Language

English

Pages

464

Format

Paperback

Weight

0.95

ISBN

0679775471

ISBN13

9780679775478

Edition No.

Synopsis "Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India "

"A giddy invasion of stories--brilliant, enigmatic, troubling, outrageous, erotic, beautiful." --The New York Times Book Review"So brilliant that you can't look at it anymore--and you can't look at anything else. . . . No one will read it without reward." --The Boston GlobeWith the same narrative fecundity and imaginative sympathy he brought to his acclaimed retelling of the Greek myths, Roberto Calasso plunges Western readers into the mind of ancient India. He begins with a mystery: Why is the most important god in the Rg Veda, the oldest of India's sacred texts, known by a secret name--"Ka," or Who? What ensues is not an explanation, but an unveiling. Here are the stories of the creation of mind and matter; of the origin of Death, of the first sexual union and the first parricide. We learn why Siva must carry his father's skull, why snakes have forked tongues, and why, as part of a certain sacrifice, the king's wife must copulate with a dead horse. A tour de force of scholarship and seduction, Ka is irresistible. "Passage[s] of such ecstatic insight and cross-cultural synthesis--simply, of such beauty." --The New York Review of Books"All is spectacle and delight, and tiny mirrors reflecting human foibles are set into the weave,turning this retelling into the stuff of literature." --The New Yorker

Roberto Calasso

(Author)

View Author's Page

Roberto Calasso (1941-2021) was an Italian writer, editor, and essayist known for his erudition and narrative style that blends mythology, history, and literature. His most famous work is The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (1988), an essay-novel about Greek mythology. Among his notable books are also Ka (1996), focused on Hindu tradition, Literature and the Gods (2001) and The Book of All Books (2019), which reinterprets biblical texts from a literary and philosophical perspective.

His literary production, often classified within the essay and philosophical narrative, explores the history of culture and its symbols. In addition to his work as an author, he was the director of Adelphi publishing house, influencing the literary world with his publications and translations.

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