![]() Mehrunnisa grows up in Akbar’s court under the watchful eye of her royal patrons. He agrees that she can stay at court and his first wife, Ruqayya, will raise her. The attendants take her to the court of Emperor Akbar, where Akbar falls in love with the baby’s dazzling grace. Mehrunnisa is found by royal attendants who are struck by her infant beauty and good nature. Instead of leaving Mehrunnisa to die, the gods of fate have other plans. Instead, they abandon her at the roadside and take off with their other children. They consider keeping Mehrunnisa but they don’t want to get attached to her. ![]() Her parents, Persian refugees, are fleeing starvation, poverty, and brutality they can’t afford to look after another child. The protagonist Mehrunnisa is born in 1577 on the road from Persia to India. ![]() The Twentieth Wife is set in late sixteenth-century India. The author of numerous historical books, Sundaresan studied economics in India and attended graduate school at the University of Delaware. Winner of the 2003 Washington State Book Award, it received overwhelmingly positive reviews following its publication. The first book in the Taj Mahal trilogy, The Twentieth Wife (2002), Indu Sundaresan’s debut work of romantic historical fiction, tells the story of one of India’s most controversial and brilliant empresses, who almost single-handedly shaped the future of the Mughal Empire. ![]()
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