Winner of the Karnataka Sahitya Akademi Book Prize, 2019

Tejo Tungabhadra tells the story of two rivers on different continents whose souls are bound together by history. On the banks of the river Tejo in Lisbon, Bella, a young Jewish refugee, and her family face daily threats to their lives and dignity from the deeply antisemitic society around them. Gabriel, her lover, sails to India with General Albuquerque's fleet seeking wealth and a secure future for themselves. Meanwhile, on the banks of the Tungabhadra in the Vijayanagara Empire, the young couple Hampamma and Keshava find themselves caught in the storm of religious violence and the cruel rigmarole of tradition. The two stories converge in Goa with all the thunder and gush of meeting rivers. Set in the late 15th and early 16th century, Tejo Tungabhadra is a grand saga of love, ambition, greed, and a deep zest for life through the tossing waves of history.

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Review

'A brilliantly coloured historical epic about love, tolerance and human destinies that spans time and place, cultural and religious differences.' -- Roger Crowley, maritime and Mediterranean historian

Vasudhendra's Tejo Tungabhadra is a magnificent tale, straddling spheres of faith and fate, joy and suffering, love and loss. Translated in all its intensity by Maithreyi Karnoor, we discover that two distant worlds-separated by oceans, race, prejudice, and religion-ultimately reflect matching strands of human experience. Rich in texture, with compelling characters, Tejo Tungabhadra is a masterful contribution to Indian historical fiction. -- Manu S. Pillai

Tejo Tunghabadra is a gripping story, wonderfully told. Vasudhendra combines beautifully realized characters with lovingly detailed history and geography to tell a story that is moving, intelligent and deeply satisfying. I couldn't put it down. -- Parvati Sharma, author of The Story of Babur

About the Author

Vasudhendra is a bestselling author in Kannada. He is the recipient of several literary awards, including the Karnataka Sahitya Akademi Book Prize and the U.R. Ananthamurthy Award. After working as a software professional for over twenty years, Vasudhendra now runs his own publication house, Chanda Pustaka. For more details, visit vasudhendra.com.

Maithreyi Karnoor is the recipient of the Charles Wallace India Trust Fellowship for creative writing and translation at Literature Across Frontiers, University of Wales Trinity Saint David. She has won the Kuvempu Bhasha Bharati prize for translation and has been shortlisted for the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize and the Montreal International Poetry Prize. Sylvia: Distant Avuncular Ends is her debut novel.