“It is quite admirable to see how the author managed to squeeze in almost all of the notable small tales that are linked to the main novel. She also does an admirable job in keeping true to the theme of biography. If an event occurred without Draupadi’s presence, she’d raconte it to us in retrospect as in hearsay. Considering that Draupadi’s claim to fame is the court scene where she gets disrobed you’d think that the author would use that as a main central theme and spend a couple of chapters on describing details, but it will come as a surprise that what happens before Draupadi gets dragged off is told to us in a mere small paragraph. The emotions are vividly portrayed, but also what puzzled me was the order to disrobe and where it came from.”

Rads reviews Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s new novel.