Book Review 70: Emperor Chandragupta by Adity Kay.

History has always been one of my favourite subjects since school days. The stories of ancient times have fascinated me since childhood. The stories of ancient people, their civilizations, the great kings and queens, the battles they fought - amazed and intrigued me.
Historical fiction, as a literary genre, is very interesting, intriguing and informative at the same time. This is the reason why I guess I am a sucker for historical fictions.

Adity Kay's book, Emperor Chandragupta, tells us the story of the Maurya king Chandragupta Maurya. He founded the Mauryan empire. The story traces back to the early days, in the third century BCE, when India was a land ruled by powerful dynasties, each fighting for supremacy over the other, and Alexander the Great had arrived from Greece to conquer and wanted to establish his dominion over the entire known world.
Moriya, a young boy, raised by a tribe of peacock-tamers, was completely unaware of the legacy that was rightfully his. Under the training and guidance of the political strategist Chanakya, he becomes Chandragupta. He then goes on to meet Alexander and thus begins his journey and conquest for the throne.
The book is divided into three parts - The Lost Prince of Magadha, The Warrior-King of Magadha, and finally, Dharma.

The author has done a commendable job in writing this interesting, detailed and informative historical fiction. It requires a lot of research to pen a historical fiction, where historical facts and fictional facts which are the elements of the authors' imagination are merged together, beautifully. The writing style is beautiful and the detailed narration makes it all the more interesting for the readers to read this book. The characters in this book are all figures of historical importance and have been very well portrayed.

Altogether, I absolutely enjoyed reading Emperor Chandragupta by Adity Kay, which is a perfect amalgamation of history, mythology, facts and fiction.
Recommending this book to all the bibliophiles who love to read historical fictions as I do!

About the author: Adity Kay has nurtured a secret love for history all through her years of working as an editor in a magazine, a human resources professional and a management consultant. She has lived in various places in India and has been as much of a border-crosser in her career as a writer, writing editorials, essays, stories for children and books for older readers across genres. Her eclectic reading in history across non-fiction and fiction and have led to her fascination with the varied possibilities of times past and has also served as an impetus to travel to long-ago worlds, if only through fiction.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars.

Publisher: Hachette India.

First Published: October 2016

Pages: 408

Price: ₹399/-

Buy this book from Amazon.

Thanks to the publisher, Hachette India, for the review copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.