Rani Durgawati

The Forgotten Life of a Warrior Queen. Gond Rani Veerangana Durgawati, queen of the tribal kingdom of Garha Mandla, ruled more than 450 years ago and died fighting for her dharma.
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Babies From The Heart

A Complete Guide To Adoption. Do you want to adopt a baby but don’t know where to start? Worried about the cost and the time it will take?
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Beaten By A Beard

A Collection of 8 short stories. Beaten by a beard is a anthology of historical fiction stories. Although the stories are historical fiction, they are all stories that are based on facts, and on actual happenings.
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The King Within

The 2nd Edition. 373 AD. In the thick forests of Malwa, an enigmatic stranger gallops into an ambush attack by bandits to rescue a young courtesan, Darshini. His name is Deva and he is the younger son of Emperor Samudragupta.
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The Poisoned Heart

The 2nd Book in the Gupta Empire Trilogy. 461 CE. Skanda Gupta, the grandson of the great emperor Chandragupta Vikramaditya, is at the helm of the still-mighty Gupta Empire.
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Kalidas

The Story of Kalidas The Gem Among Poets. A delightful tale of the literary legend Kalidas, a man so revered that his imprint is felt in Indian literature to this day.
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The Blue Horse

And Other Amazing Animals From Indian History. So move over, chroniclers and historians. For centuries, we’ve been ignored, forgotten, occasionally footnoted (thanks a lot). It’s time we took centre stage.
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The Ocean’s Own

The 3rd Book in the Gupta Empire Trilogy. 373 AD. In the thick forests of Malwa, an enigmatic stranger gallops into an ambush attack by bandits to rescue a young courtesan, Darshini.
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Biography

About Nandini

Nandini Sengupta is a Pondicherry-based writer and journalist. After a chance trip to the Ajanta and Ellora caves in 2007, she began researching third and fourth-century India, initially out of mere curiosity and later out of interest, which quickly deepened into an obsession with India’s glorious past. An avid reader of the historical genre, she has been researching for The King Within for the past eight years. Already a published author with several non-fiction titles to her credit, this is her first work of fiction. Nandini is forty-nine and lives in Pondicherry’s quaint French quarter with her little daughter Kiki.
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Rani Durgawati

Author awards shortlist 2023
The Forgotten Life of a Warrior Queen. Gond Rani Veerangana Durgawati, queen of the tribal kingdom of Garha Mandla, ruled more than 450 years ago and died fighting for her dharma.
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Reader Reviews

Vishy
Vishy the Knight
Nandini Sen Gupta breaks new ground here, and presents eight historical short stories in this collection. The most fascinating thing about these short stories is that they are not pure fiction, but are based on facts, on actual happenings. Many of the actual events behind these stories are less well known – atleast for me – and so they make the reader see the past with new eyes.
Sohinee Dey
Poesy in Chrysalis
I loved the choice of words in this book. The language has that medieval feel to it and the writing is supported with thorough research. The writing style is descriptive. It’s smooth and allows generous amount of time for the characters to shine. Even when I am not a big fan of historical fiction, the realisation of the fact that I actually enjoyed reading this book surprised me.
Aparna Prabhu
Read on Goodreads
The characters were inspired from prominent historic figures from 373 AD. The author has depicted them in a different light. Even though there were many of them, but one could easily recall their names owing to the flawless characterisation...The treatment rendered to Chandragupta's character was perfect in every sense.
Sudesna Ghosh
Sure Ghosh
Nandini Sengupta's Conversation with Sudesna Ghosh about the release of her book The King Within, and snippets of her journey as an author of historical fiction.
Vishy
Vishy the Knight
I don’t know how the author managed to pack in so much in a book of this size...Clearly the author has done her research very well. I loved Nandini Sengupta’s prose – it flowed smoothly with an elegant touch, page-turning during action scenes and slow and thoughtful in contemplative scenes.
Aloke Kumar
In Conversation with Nandini Sengupta
I loved the depiction of the life of that ancient era in the book. Reading this book made me want to read more about the history of that period. That, I think, is one of the great achievements of the novel – making the reader want to read more.

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2 months ago

The KING Within
Our first academic paper alert! My friend Moupia Basu and I are honoured to be co-authors of a paper on India's veerangana tradition for Loyola Marymount University's Monsoon journal. Those interested do check it out in the link belowdigitalcommons.lmu.edu/monsoon-sasa-journal/vol2/iss1/ ... See MoreSee Less
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2 months ago

The KING Within
My discussion on Rani Durgawati with Dr Jayanti Ravi at the Auroville Lit Fest ... See MoreSee Less
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2 months ago

The KING Within
#PLF2023 was a wonderfully enriching experience and getting to share stage with people I admire and listen to some of the finest minds in India today made it particularly so. Meeting, listening to and chatting with the likes of Disha Ahluwalia, Swapan Dasgupta, Meenakshi Jain, Vikram Sampath, Gautam Chikermane, Devdip Ganguly, Prasenjit Basu, Vijayalakshmi Vijayakumar, Abhinav Agarwal, Shiv Aroor, Air Marshal Anil Chopra, CMDE Srikant Kesnur, Lalitha Kumarmangalam, Deep Haldar, Aloke Kumar and Anand Ranganathan was wonderful. A big thank you to the organizing trio of Partha Hariharan, Ajit Datta and Alo Pal ... See MoreSee Less
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5 months ago

The KING Within
The Blue Horse And Other Amazing Animals From Indian History made it to the Bal Sahitya Puraskar shortlist. It didn't win but still I am chuffed ... See MoreSee Less
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