Andal’s Garland

A rich and immersive sensory experience of Indian life, culture and history; a story of beauty and poetry of the 8th century interwoven with a contemporary search for self-enlightenment. The retelling of two women’s lives and their unrequited love for god or man. Meticulously researched. Evocative description and sense of place. Cass Moriarty Saisha, an Australian traveling in India with her partner, Marcus, makes a chance purchase of a book of Tamil poetry from a Delhi market. The yearning verses precipitate her quest to discover more about their author Andal, the revered young tale-teller of a thousand years ago, a girl with goddess eyes in thrall to the sapphire-skinned Lord Vishnu. Saisha, questioning the faltering bonds of her own relationship, returns alone to southern India to trace this intriguing story. Helen Burns carries readers safely aloft amid scents of sacred basil and rose and the push and shove of temple towns as Saisha is wooed by the mystique of the revered poetess and succumbs to the irresistible pull of Mother India, that most divine of temptresses. Susan Kurosawa I have no doubt that Helen Burns writes under the immense and long-reaching aegis of Andal herself. Saisha’s longings resonate with echoes from a distant time, in which a young poet learns to transcend the world through verses that reveal the secrets of the aching heart and the eager body. Gently philosophical and elegantly erotic, Andal’s Garland has a narrative charge that spans centuries and continents with ease. What a lovely book this is. I could say it over and over, like Andal’s own parrot might. Sharanya Manivannan, author of The Queen of Jasmine Country This is a book for pilgrims. Every so often in a life there's an urgent and mysterious summons, and – it can happen very abruptly – you find yourself on a pilgrimage. I read Andal's Garland at such a time in my own life. It's a wise, thoughtful, passionate and necessary companion. Peter Bishop, Creative Director of Varuna – The Writers' House