Mahabharata

The Mahabharata is the longest poem ever written, and at its centre is a quarrel between cousins that grows until it consumes the world.

The Pandavas and the Kauravas are raised together, taught by the same masters, bound by the same family. A game of dice takes the Pandavas' kingdom, their freedom and very nearly their wife. Thirteen years later they come back for what was theirs, and every king in the world has to choose a side.

This retelling follows the epic from beginning to end in modern English prose — the exile, the gambling hall, the eighteen days at Kurukshetra, and the Bhagavad-gita spoken between two armies while the fighting waits.