If the name Until the Lions seems familiar, it’s because this singular book of poetry was named after a well-known quote by Chinua Achebe:

There is that great proverb – that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. That did not come to me until much later. Once I realised that, I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian.

Until the Lions is populated by the most hunted characters in the Mahabharata – most of them women. These are some of the most marginalised characters in the epic, whose stories are the least told. They are recounted here by Nair, meticulously, with great compassion, and prodigious skill.

These women include Hidimbi, Bheem’s wife, who doesn’t accompany him out of the forest because she would perish without it. There is Amba/Shikhandi, destroyed by Bheeshm, and reborn only to destroy him. There is Dusshala, the sole Kaurava sister, who names all her brothers. There is Poorna, the dasi, ordered to sleep with Ved Vyaas, who instructs him on the art of love-making. There is also the dasi Sauvali, kidnapped and raped by Dhritarashtra for the purpose of having a son.

Each voice is distinguished by a particular poetic form, and manages to convey – with the piercing ability to tell truth in a manner that is unique to poetry – the ills of war, and the unsung courage and grit employed by the vast range of characters it impacts. The book is one of the most original and contemporary readings of the epic in our generation, and we are fortunate to have Nair as the sharp, discerning storyteller who brings it to us.

Until The Lions won the Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year award for fiction in 2015.