Within its 200,000 verse lines in Sanskrit the Mahabharata takes on many roles: epic poem, foundational text of Hinduism, and, more broadly, the engaging story of a dynastic struggle and the passing of an age when man and gods intermingled. David R. Slavitt's sparkling new edition condenses the epic for the general reader.

DAVID SLAVITT is a poet, translator, novelist, critic, and journalist. He is the author of more than seventy works of fiction and poetry, as well as poetry and drama in translation. He is the author of The Duke's Man: A Novel (Northwestern University Press, 2011) and translator of The Metamorphoses of Ovid (1994).

HENRY L. CARRIGAN JR. is the assistant director and a senior editor at Northwestern University Press.