Shadow Princess: A Novel [Hardcover]

Indu Sundaresan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 23, 2010

The daughters of Emperor Jahangir, Jahanara and Roshanara, plot and scheme against one another in an attempt to gain power over their father’s harem. As royal princesses they are confined in the imperial harem and not allowed to marry. However, this does not stop them from having illicit affairs or plotting the next heir to the throne.

These royal sisters are in competition for everything: power over the harem, their father’s affection (still focused on his dead wife), and the future of their country. Unfortunately, only one of them can succeed. And, despite their best efforts to affect the future, their schemes are eclipsed, both during their lives and in posterity, as they live in the shadow of the greatest monument in Indian history, the Taj Mahal.

With a flair and enthusiasm for history and culture, Sundaresan creates a story full of rich details that brings the reader deep into the world of the lives of Indian women and their struggles for power and consequence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sundaresan (The Twentieth Wife) returns to 17th-century India in this romantic fictionalization of the life of Jahanara, the oldest child of the empress Mumtaz Mahal, Shah Jahan's cherished wife. Mumtaz dies in childbirth, leaving four sons, two teenage daughters and a newborn girl. The grief-stricken emperor seeks consolation in the construction of the Taj, the magnificent Luminous Tomb, while the profundity of his mourning exposes his fallibility to his sons, who begin eyeing his throne. Jahanara and her sister Roshanara choose to back different brothers, and they compete to rule in both the royal harem and their father's heart. Before long, Jahanara is the one who succeeds as the emperor's closest confidante, and he refuses to allow her to leave him to marry. Sundaresan has a scholar's fascination with the period; she's at her best describing the opulent court or the construction of the Taj Mahal. Little is known about the actual Jahanara, and Sundaresan has blessed the princess's fictional proxy with such perfection that readers will be tempted to find her flawed siblings not only more believable but also more interesting. (Mar.)
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Review

Heavily researched and expertly written...[Shadow Princess is] an exhilarating mixture of character and event, emotion and intrigue, extravagance and architecture.
--indiacurrents.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=110cc5e658e9e1361385f78c4dc9c870

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Atria Books (March 23, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416548793
• ISBN-13: 978-1416548799
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #602,987 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #90 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Indian

More About the Author

Indu Sundaresan was born and brought up in India, on Air Force bases around the country. Her father, a fighter pilot with the Indian Air Force, was also an avid storyteller--as was his father, Indu's grandfather. She grew up on their stories on various themes--Hindu mythology and fictional tales of an elephant and a horse living in the wilderness.

She came to the U.S. for graduate school at the University of Delaware and has two degrees; an M.S. in operations research and an M.A. in economics. But, the storytelling gene beckoned and she began writing soon after graduate school.

The Twentieth Wife (2002), based on the life of Mehrunnisa, Empress Nur Jahan, is the tale of one of India's most powerful women. This was her first published novel, but the third one she wrote--the first two still languish on the hard drive of some forgotten old computer and are never to be revived; they were practice runs and taught her how to write a novel.
She is the author of five books so far. The Twentieth Wife (2002); The Feast of Roses (2003); The Splendor of Silence (2006); In the Convent of Little Flowers (2008) and Shadow Princess (2010).

All of Indu's work has been published, in hardcover and paperback, in the U.S. by Pocket Books/Atria Books/Washington Square Press--imprints of Simon & Schuster. Her work has been translated into 17 languages to date.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A journey back in time, March 22, 2010

By 

J. Braun "Author of Hurdy Gurdy" (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shadow Princess: A Novel (Hardcover)

Readers will find this a stylish novel, giving a fascinating description of how the Taj Mahal was built. Ms. Sundaresan cleverly fills her paragraphs with many vivid descriptions so that when you turn a page you will have experienced sights, smells, tastes, colors, sizzling heat and cooling breezes as she takes you back in time. You are there. You see firsthand the bazaars, the cloistered zenana, the opulence of the palace the lifestyle and indulgence of the emperors. Her writing style is like a beautiful art piece. She "paints" with bold, confident strokes, pulling you in, so that you get the feeling that if you turn around you will be face to face with the characters, close enough to touch them.

The story begins with the untimely death of Empress Arjumand leaving behind her young children and inconsolable husband, Emperor Shah Jahan. They had shared a deep bond of passionate love and after her death he was never the same. The death of the empress left a great deal of responsibility on her oldest daughter, Jahanara who was only nineteen. Princess Jahanara's character and the stresses of her life are well-developed and beautifully intertwined in the story. In fact, this is not revealed until after the first fifty pages or so, giving the reader plenty of time to get to know all the characters and their individual personalities. Ms. Sundaresan's writing is downright elegant; she has taken the time to carefully develop every single character and bring them to life - from the mighty emperors, the young princes and princesses right down to the humble servants who run to obey their every command. Each character in the book is impeccably and cleverly fleshed out so that you are given a look into their minds and hearts to discover who they really are.

Even though the story took place hundreds of years ago, Sundaresan brings it to life and you will find yourself on a breathless journey to see how the story ends. You will "see" for yourself how the glorious Luminous Tomb was built. Lined with gold, silver, and rare jewels, twenty thousand men labored for twenty-two years to build the marble mausoleum, to fulfill Shah Jahan's obsession, to demonstrate his perfect love for Arjumand.

Am I recommending this book? Absolutely and wholeheartedly. Please get yourself a copy and then get another to give to a friend. Don't rush through it. Take your time. Take a day off. Then sit back and savor the story, the romance, the treacherous conspiring and scheming of the royal siblings in their struggle for power, but most of all Ms. Sundaresan's powerful writing.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Was this then the end of the Mughals?", March 28, 2010

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shadow Princess: A Novel (Hardcover)

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The death of Mumtaz Muhal, Emperor Shah Jahan's Exalted One of the Palace, after the birth of her fourteenth child is the foundation for Sundaresan's beautifully crafted and detailed novel of the Mughal Empire in 1631. With attention to historical detail and compassion for those caught in the great drama of the succession, the author captures the emotional tenor of the aftermath of the death of the empress and the political machinations of the four sons who are heirs to the throne. The man who will eventually erect the Taj Mahal to honor his dead wife, ruthless though he may have been in gaining his throne, is devastated by the enormity of his loss. Suddenly plans to marry his favorite daughter, Jahanara to Mizra Najabat Khan are put on indefinite hold, although the younger sister, Roshanana, covets this particular man for herself.

It is Jahanara who is the star of this piece, a young woman denied the man she loves to serve her father in his time of need. His need will absorb her future; Jahan pays a heavy price for accepting that burden, one she embraces with conviction. At odds with her older and more powerful sister, Roshanara slips easily into her role as Jahan's adversary, secretly aligning herself with a younger brother, Aurangzeb in lieu of the emperor's obvious choice for succession, Dara. While Dara takes his position and his place in his father's affections for granted, Aurangzeb nurtures his own ambitions, active where Dara is lazy and spoiled. Meanwhile, the emperor ignores affairs of state in his obsession with building a monument to his beloved wife.

As she did in The Twentieth Wife, Sundaresan imbues her characters with emotional depth, creating in Jahanara a protagonist of exceptional strength and loyalty, a woman forced to make painful decisions, to choose duty to her father over personal fulfillment, marriage and children. The demands on this woman are extraordinary, called to refute ugly rumors begun in spite by her sister, carving a few stolen moments of happiness into a life rigidly defined by obligation. The political realities of the evolution of the Mughal Empire are significant and thoughtfully explored, the author keeping her finger on the pulse of the kingdom and the yearning in Jahanara's heart, a melding of historical fact and the difficult emotional terrain of a woman trapped forever behind the walls of convention. Intricate and exquisite as the trappings of royalty, the world of the zenana is exposed, its luxury and demands, Jahanara bridging the past and an uncertain future. Luan Gaines/2010.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Power Is a Strange Bedfellow, May 25, 2010

By 

Beverly Jackson "avid reader" (Huntersville, NC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shadow Princess: A Novel (Hardcover)

For lovers of historical fiction, nothing is better than a book that has you immersed in the storyline and engages all of your five senses, so that when you look up from reading it takes you a couple of seconds to re-orient to your current surroundings. Shadow Princess by Indu Sundaresan was just that book for me. When Shadow Princess opens we are transported to 17th century India as the Mumtaz Muhal, the much beloved wife of the Emperor, is about to give birth to her 14th child. Also, in the room with her are her two teen-aged daughters, Jahanara(17) and Roshanara (14). As the birth process continues, it appears Mumtaz Muhal may not survive, and she reaches out for Jahanara, neglecting Roshanara, who also rushes to her mother's side. But, despite the best of care available, Mumtaz Muhal dies, leaving behind four sons, two older daughters, a newborn girl child, and an inconsolable husband. But when the Emperor is finally convinced to resume his morning appearances before the royalty, it obvious that he is in a very fragile state; for a show of unity, Jahanara thrusts her four brothers out into the balcony to stand by their father. At this moment, all four brothers, despite their young age, feel the surge of power of being Emperor and this becomes each of their goals. Roshanara, once again feeling left out, and in her bitterness wonders how to control her destiny in this male-dominated world.

While this is the third book in the Sundaresan's trilogy on the Mughal Empire, it is not necessary to read the prior books to enjoy this storyline. Sundaresan's passion and research for this period of Indian history comes through in her exquisite writing and the decoding of the culture. This a tale of the lush life of the royalty and those favored by them. Even for the reader who knows the outcome of the power struggle, Sunderesan weaves an interesting path of getting to this point, focusing the story on Jahanara and Roshanara and the roles of women in shaping Indian history. What most of us know of this era is the building of the Taj Mahal as a tribute of a man's love for wife, Sundaresan took a chance and made the Taj Mahal a character in the book and it is only fitting as the influence of women have often been overlooked in the telling of this period; however, this oversight is corrected by this trilogy.

I recommend this book to not only readers of historical fiction, but also to readers who enjoy reading about sibling rivalry, unrequited love, uncontrolled ambition and adventure.

This book was provided by the publisher for review purposes.

Reviewed by Beverly

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