Suranna recounts the story of a young courtesan who falls in love with the most handsome man in the universe and overhears him speaking of a mysterious person whose story must never be told. Burning with curiosity and desire, she ventures to the god Krishna's palace, where much intrigue and adventure ensue. The Sound of the Kiss is considered by some to be the first novel written in South Asia, and the translation of this classic fills a gap in the literature of the East. Western scholars have tended to ignore Telugu literature, from the region now known as Andhra Pradesh, in favor of Sanskrit writings. But this sixteenth-century masterpiece, an adventure tale similar in structure to the Arabian Nights, explodes preconceived ideas about early South Indian literature - for example, that the characters lack interiority, that the language is formulaic, and that Telugu texts are mere translations of earlier Sanskrit works.
Author Biography
David Shulman is professor of Indian studies and comparative religion at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and one of the preeminent scholars of South Asian literature. Velcheru Narayana Rao teaches at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
