A History of Arabic Literature

There is a great tradition of Arabic learning in India. But not all Indians have equally benefited from that heritage. The language barrier is, admittedly, formidable. But it is equally formidable in the case of Greek.

Described by national periodicals as 'one of the most original and stimulating minds writing in the subcontinent today' and as 'our nearest approximation to the Renaissance man, versatile in interests and depth of learning', Krishna Chaitanya is the author of over thirty books whose multi-disciplinary range got him the 'Critic of Ideas' award of the Institute of International Education, New York. The major categories are: a five volume philosophy of freedom for which he got a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship and which has been compared by critics to the work of Thomas Aquinas, the French Encyclopedists, Herbert Spencer, Bergson, Whitehead and Teilhard de Chardin; several books on Indian Culture including a four-volume history of Indian painting; Sanskrit classics retold for children, one of which got the Federation of Indian Publishers' award for the best children's book.
The present work belongs to another major project of his: a ten volume history of world literature in English and several Indian languages. It got a special award from the Kerala Sahitya Academy and was hailed by the press as 'a landmark in publishing history'. The series has covered ancient Mesopota­mia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Judea and Latin Christendom, besides including histories of Sanskrit literature, Malayalam literature and a major work on Sanskrit?poetics.