Date: February 21, 2022
Venue: Online
Over the long march of time and despite all the ebbs and flows in India’s cultural landscape, one remarkable facet of the Indian literary mind – a mind that has immersed itself in the literature that expresses the eternal spirit of India – can never be missed. It keeps expressing the timeless truths revealed to the ancient sages and seers in new forms and with contemporary vocabulary, touching the hearts and minds of generations across ages.
Meet the Author
In this month’s Insightful Conversation, we feature one such author who has mastered the art of telling stories inspired by the vast body of Indian literature, which in the words of Sri Aurobindo, is “thoroughly original and self-revealing.” Saiswaroopa Iyer has won great acclaim as a creative writer and has published several novels which portray her reimaginings of important women characters from the Mahābhārata, the Purānas and various other ancient texts of India.
Her novels are firmly rooted in the long lineage of Indian literature which continue to reveal for the reader those intimate and detailed aspects of a truly national cultural life and history. This is the history that lives in collective memory of the Indian people, which is often ignored or deliberately rejected by the official historiography. These are the cultural memories that have enriched and shaped the essential religio-spiritual character of Indian culture and society.