The Twentieth Wife

For three and a half centuries, the Taj Mahal has haunted our imaginations. It is a tomb built by a grieving king of the Mughal Empire (1526-1858) in India in memory of his beloved wife.

But it was this woman's aunt, an empress in her own right, who was the most powerful queen of that dynasty. The Twentieth Wife is the story of this Empress Nur Jahan.

The year is 1577. As a winter storm rages in the remote outpost of Kandahar, a baby girl named Mehrunnisa is born in a nomad tent. Her parents, penniless and in exile from their home in Persia, decide to give up the child. They already have three children, and are on their way to the Mughal court in India. Thirty-four years later, this child of the storm comes to Emperor Jahangir's harem as his twentieth wife, and becomes Empress Nur Jahan.

Brought up around the Mughal court, Mehrunnisa sees Jahangir at his first wedding. She decides with the precocity of an eight-year-old, that one day, she will be his wife.

In the years before this becomes an actuality, Mehrunnisa will be married to another man despite her inclinations. She sees her husband slaughtered by the imperial army — court gossips will have it on Jahangir's orders. There are powerful courtiers determined not to let the marriage take place. One of Jahangir's wives, Mehrunnisa's biggest rival in the imperial harem, tries to turn the Emperor against her.

Through all these years, Mehrunnisa and Jahangir's love for each other endures until 1611, when she comes into his harem as his twentieth — and last — wife. At this time he gives her the title of Nur Jahan, by which she is known to posterity.

Although a work of fiction, The Twentieth Wife is rooted in historical fact and detail culled from accounts of seventeenth-century travelers to Emperor Jahangir's court and the memoirs of the Mughal kings.

"Lustily detailed life in another time — the Mughal Empire of early-17th century India....Drawing on historical records, Sundaresan, an Indian-born writer living in the U.S., gives her own interpretation of the fabled woman who, once she married the Emperor Jahangir, becoming his 20th and last wife, ruled the empire in his name for 15 years." Kirkus Reviews

"Sundaresan's debut is a sweeping, carefully researched tale of desire, sexual mores and political treachery set against the backdrop of 16th and 17th-century India....Sundaresan charts the chronology of the Mughal Empire, describing life in the royal court in convincing detail and employing authentic period terms throughout." Publishers Weekly

"This epic tale of the seventeenth-century Moghul empress Nur Jahan before her marriage is informative, convincing and madly entertaining. The reader comes away with an unexpected vision of the power behind the veil." Marilyn Yalom, author of A History of the Wife and A History of the Breast.

"Indu Sundaresan has written a fascinating novel about a fascinating time, and has brought it alive with characters that are at once human and legendary, that move with grace and panache across the brilliant stage she has reconstructed for them." Chitra Divakaruni, author of Mistress of Spices and Unknown Errors of Our Lives.

An enchanting 16th century epic of exotic passion and power, this novel tells the captivating story of one of India's most legendary heroines.

An enchanting seventeenth-century epic of grand passion and adventure, this debut novel tells the captivating story of one of India's most legendary and controversial empresses — a woman whose brilliance and determination trumped myriad obstacles, and whose love shaped the course of the Mughal empire.

She came into the world in the year 1577, to the howling accompaniment of a ferocious winter storm. As the daughter of starving refugees fleeing violent persecution in Persia, her fateful birth in a roadside tent sparked a miraculous reversal of family fortune, culminating in her father's introduction to the court of Emperor Akbar. She is called Mehrunnisa, the Sun of Women. This is her story.

Growing up on the fringes of Emperor Akbar's opulent palace grounds, Mehrunnisa blossoms into a sapphire-eyed child blessed with a precocious intelligence, luminous beauty, and a powerful ambition far surpassing the bounds of her family's station. Mehrunnisa first encounters young Prince Salim on his wedding day. In that instant, even as a royal gala swirls around her in celebration of the future emperor's first marriage, Mehrunnisa foresees the path of her own destiny. One day, she decides with uncompromising surety, she too will become Salim's wife. She is all of eight years old — and wholly unaware of the great price she and her family will pay for this dream.

Skillfully blending the textures of historical reality with the rich and sensuous imaginings of a timeless fairy tale, "The Twentieth Wife" sweeps readers up in the emotional pageant of Salim and Mehrunnisa's embattled love. First-time novelist Indu Sundaresan charts her heroine's enthralling journey across the years, from an ill-fated first marriage through motherhood and into a dangerous maze of power struggles and political machinations. Through it all, Mehrunnisa and Salim long with fiery intensity for the true, redemptive love they've never known — and their mutual quest ultimately takes them, and the vast empire that hangs in the balance, to places they never dreamed possible.

Shot through with wonder and suspense, "The Twentieth Wife" is at once a fascinating portrait of one woman's convention-defying life behind the veil and a transporting saga of the astonishing potency of love.

Indu Sundaresan was born in India and grew up on Air Force bases all over the country. Her father, a fighter pilot, was also a storyteller. He got this from his father, Indu's grandfather, whose visits were always eagerly awaited. Indu's love of stories comes from both of them, from hearing their stories based on imagination and rich Hindu mythology, and from her father's writings. After an undergraduate degree in economics from India, Indu came to the U.S. for graduate school at the University of Delaware. But all too soon, the storytelling gene beckoned.

Indu is currently at work on the sequel to The Twentieth Wife titled Power Behind the Veil, which will continue Mehrunnisa's story as Empress Nur Jahan until the time of her death.