An Indian Odyssey
  • Published: 1 September 2009
  • ISBN: 9780099458906
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

An Indian Odyssey

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Travelling by land, sea and small plane from north-east India to Sri Lanka and back, Martin Buckley recreates one of the great journeys in world literature - the Ramayana.

The Ramayana - the Journey of Rama - is India's best-loved book, an inspiration to school-children, monks and moviemakers, yet it is virtually unknown in the Western world. The story of Rama, an exiled prince searching savage jungles for his kidnapped wife, it mixes Homer's Odyssey with Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It is an ancient epic, at once violent, spiritual and erotic. Yet it also lies at the heart of India's fiercest modern controversy, the Hindu-Muslim clash that has claimed 13,000 lives since 1992.

When Martin Buckley first encountered the Ramayana twenty-five-years ago, it seemed a key to unlocking the myriad mysteries of Indian life. He dreamed of retracing the journey of the blue-skinned warrior god from his birthplace in North India to the climax of his confrontation with evil in Sri Lanka. Buckley's own physical and spiritual odyssey, a sometimes perilous passage through India by motorbike, microlight, bus and train, offers unique and passionate insights into the heart of India - ancient and modern.
  • Published: 1 September 2009
  • ISBN: 9780099458906
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

About the author

Martin Buckley

Martin Buckley has lived in France, Italy, Turkey and India and has worked as a journalist in over forty countries. For ten years he was a producer with Radio 4 and is still a regular contributor to From Our Own Correspondent (Radio 4). He has presented TV travel documentaries for Discovery Channel and has been a columnist in the Daily Telegraph and the Observer. He is the author of the highly praised travel books, An Indian Odyssey, Grains of Sand and Absolute Altitude. He is married with one young son and currently divides his time between London and Corsica.

Also by Martin Buckley

Absolute Altitude
Grains Of Sand
See all

Praise for An Indian Odyssey

Buckley is a born story-teller

Observer

Travel writing with a difference as Buckley traces the route of the Ramayana, the great Indian epic, from north-west India to Sri Lanka, encountering "Marxists and Mystics" along the way. A brilliant blend of travelogue, history and romance

Scotland on Sunday

Sensual, earthly...incredibly well-informed... An engaging and powerful book

Daily Telegraph

Essential... it brings the reader into the heart of the Indian subcontinent

Irish Times

Martin Buckley recreates one of the great journeys in world literature, the Ramayana...An absorbing holiday read

Yoga and Health Magazine

A meditation on the mysteries of life masquerading as a rollicking road trip, in which Buckley heroically makes his way through the carnal to the divine... His India is a tumbling riot of brothels, beggars, bombs, road accidents, riots, temples... Woven into his own epic adventures is his raunchy and believable abridgement of the epic Ramayana, worthy Vikram Seth

Independent
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