One of the oldest literary texts in the country, the Ramayana has had a profound impact on our emotional lives. Innumerable translations, or rather reinterpretations, of the work exist. Generations of poets have delighted in taking up scenes and daubing them with fresh colour.Romesh Dutt's translation is one with a difference where the writer homes in on core incidents and strings them together. To the first time reader it provides a general acquaintance with incidents in the tale, besides a sample of the poetic beauty of the work.

Romesh C. Dutt (1848-1909) was born in Bengal in pre-independent India.He was a member of the Indian Civil Service and also served the Bengal Legislative Council. His first literary successes were in his mother tongue, plays,poems, historical novels, and also a Bengali translation of the RigVeda, which was a subject of much controversy. Apart from his English translations of the two great epics, his other notable works are Economic History of India and India in the Victorian Age.