Kadambari: The World's First Novel?

Found in the marooned ruins of Chavand was a book ripped and torn. Its yellowed pages eaten up and coiled. Forgotten and unheard about was this book until it came to light. His legends lived on, his tales of valour prevailed. His glory seemed enternal and he was worshiped and adored. But his heart remained shrouded in a cloak of mystery. His emotions, his turmoils went unnoticed in an attempt to make him great. Seen as someone who was invincible and immortal, the Rana changes your perspective from his greatness to his soft heart. Written across the pages during his last moments, he wrote his own life. Where bards would be at a loss and poets were simply lost in his glory and valor, the Rana is said to be the only one who could write about himself.

The novel is mainly about the forgotten British poet/writer named C. J Richards who lived in Burma/Myanmar in colonial times and he believed himself as a Burmophile. He served as I.C.S (Indian Civil Servant) and when he retired from I.C.S service, he was a D.C (District Commissioner) and he left for England a year before Burma gained its independence in 1948. He came to Burma in 1920 to work in civil service after passing the hardest I.C.S examination. He wrote several books on Burma and contributed many monthly articles to Guardian Magazine published in Burma from 1953 to 1974 or 1975. Though he wrote several books which had much literary merit to both communities, Britain and Burma (Myanmar), people failed to recognize him. The story has two parts: one part is set in the contemporary Yangon (then called Rangoon) in 2016 context and a young literary enthusiast named “Lin” found out unexpectedly the forgotten writer’s poetry book and there is surely a good deal of time gap that led him into a quest to know more about the author’s life. The setting is quite different comparing to colonial Burma and independence Myanmar (Burma), early twentieth century and 2016 which is a transitional period in Myanmar. The writer’s life is fictionalized in the novel and most of the facts are taken from his personal stories and other reference books. It is a kind of historical novel with a twist and it has comparatively constructed the two different periods in Myanmar history to convince readers, locally and abroad more about history, authorship, humanity, colonialism, and transitional development in Myanmar today.

The world is put to a standstill when a female was born to the home of a mighty king. She is destined to conquer the world and the evil rulers of the earth are determined to eliminate her. Its down to the king to leave his throne and fight for her until she is of age. He is mighty but she was destined to be mightier. Will his throne be secure until upon his return or will the King's wife betray him? If so does this mean the king's only ally is his only daughter who is not even of age? Find out.

We read so often of a time when dragons fought and ruled with their mates by their side, how the dragon found his mate… but nobody seems to wonder; where it all began, what if I told you; that there was a time when the great Archdragons had no mates. Is the suspense burning within you?

There was a river that ran through our village. According to the legend, a river god dwelled in its depths, and every month on the 15th, the village had to send a young woman to enter the water and serve him. At first, everything seemed normal. After their service to the river god, the women would return to shore, go home, and eventually marry and start families. But this year, the peace was shattered. Every woman who spent the night with the river god turned up dead, their naked bodies floating to the surface. I secretly watched as they retrieved the corpses twice. The evidence of the violation was horrific. This month, I was selected. I had been chosen to marry the river god.

Her name was Cathedra. Leave her last name blank, if you will. Where normal people would read, "And they lived happily ever after," at the end of every fairy tale story, she could see something else. Three different things. Three words: Lies, lies, lies. A picture that moves. And a plea: Please tell them the truth. All her life she dedicated herself to becoming a writer and telling the world what was being shown in that moving picture. To expose the lies in the fairy tales everyone in the world has come to know. No one believed her. No one ever did. She was branded as a liar, a freak with too much imagination, and an orphan who only told tall tales to get attention. She was shunned away by society. Loveless. Friendless. As she wrote "The End" to her novels that contained all she knew about the truth inside the fairy tale novels she wrote, she also decided to end her pathetic life and be free from all the burdens she had to bear alone. Instead of dying, she found herself blessed with a second life inside the fairy tale novels she wrote, and living the life she wished she had with the characters she considered as the only friends she had in the world she left behind. Cathedra was happy until she realized that an ominous presence lurks within her stories. One that wanted to kill her to silence the only one who knew the truth.