VICTORY CITY

The epic tale of a woman who breathes a fantastical empire into existence, only to be consumed by it over the centuries--from the transcendent imagination of Booker Prizewinning, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie In the wake of an unimportant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in fourteenth-century southern India, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. After witnessing the death of her mother, the grief-stricken Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for her namesake, the goddess Pampa, who begins to speak out of the girls mouth. Granting her powers beyond Pampa Kampanas comprehension, the goddess tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga-- victory city--the wonder of the world. Over the next 250 years, Pampa Kampanas life becomes deeply interwoven with Bisnagas, from its literal sowing from a bag of magic seeds to its tragic ruination in the most human of ways: the hubris of those in power. Whispering Bisnaga and its citizens into existence, Pampa Kampana attempts to make good on the task that the goddess set for her: to give women equal agency in a patriarchal world. But all stories have a way of getting away from their creator, and Bisnaga is no exception. As years pass, rulers come and go, battles are won and lost, and allegiances shift, the very fabric of Bisnaga becomes an ever more complex tapestry--with Pampa Kampana at its center. Brilliantly styled as a translation of an ancient epic,