About the Book Young Shivaji reaches Pune, a dying fort city, with his mother Jijabai and lights the first lamp within its ruins. While his father Shahaji Bhosale is away on deputation by the Adil Shah sultanate after having failed in a revolt against it, Shivaji learns how an empire is built from the ground up. Thus begins the life of the Great Maratha.

What awaits Shivaji is nothing short of the vast scroll of history, and it takes him from Surat to Thanjavur and all the way to Aurangzeb's durbar in Agra. He dreams of freeing his land from the clutches of Mughal rule, and though he suffers many defeats and personal losses along the way he never gives up his vision of Hindavi Swaraj. Amidst political intrigue and a chain of skirmishes, Shivaji becomes a leader, a warrior and a tactician par excellence, driven by immense pride and love for his motherland.

This is a new English translation of Ranjit Desai's much-loved Marathi classic Shriman Yogi, and a literary rendition of the life of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

About the Author RANJIT DESAI (1928-1992) was born in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra. He was considered a large-hearted litterateur whose writing engaged the readers at the highest level of emotional dialogue. He started writing when he settled in Kowad after his graduation. A writer of short stories, plays and novels, Ranjit Desai received an award for his very first short story, Thairav', published in the magazine Prasad in 1946. He published his short story collection Roop Mahal in 1958 and stepped into the world of novels with Bari in the same year. He received many awards, including the Maharashtra Rajya Award (1963, for Swami), the Hari Narayan Apte Award (1963, for Swami), the Sahitya Akademi Award (1964, for Swami) and the Maharashtra Gaurav Puraskar (1990). The Government of India gave him the Padma Shri in 1973.

VIKRANT PANDE started translating from the Marathi with Ranjit Desai's classic novel Raja Ravi Varma, the story of India's most celebrated painter. He has since translated Milind Bokil's Shala, N.S. Inamdar's Rau: The Great Love Story of Bajirao Mastani and Shahenshah: The Life of Aurangzeb. A graduate of Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore, Vikrant worked in the corporate sector for twenty-five years before shifting to the field of education where he currently is a vice chancellor with TeamLease Skills University at Vadodara.

Book's Sample Pages