The tales in this book (as in its follower, Vol 2 -- Fables of Conflict and Intrigue) stem from humanity's ancient immersion in Oral Traditions, when "once-upon-a-time" triggered utter entry into imaginary 'storyworlds'. Wild extremes of primitive music (probably from flute or drum), voice, accent, mimicry, song and dance aroused groups -- then as now -- into a vivid social sense of extra-dimensionality, sometimes merging an awareness of the everyday with the certainty that evolutionary survival demands constant change and adaptation.

Today, our more subdued, linear "lighbulb" literary tradition, developed over the past 2,500 years, is codified through the written word or notated score. It often marks the difference between silently reading a play by Shakespearea or absorbing it through the hurly-burly of any stage performance.

The linked stories in KALILA AND DIMNA hark back to wilder times, closer to our hunter-gatherer era, before agriculture - when animals, shadows and spirits lurked nearby. Some of its ancient animal-stories were first transcribed and then re-jigged by poets, monks and scholars through five languages -- the Pali JATAKA TALES (450 BCE); the Sanskrit PANCHATANTRA (300 BCE); Syriac, Arabic (750 CE); Persian (1505 CE) culminating in the 1570 English rendition (from the Italian) of The Morall Philosophie of Doni by Sir Thomas North (published when Shakespeare was a boy of six).

Two scholastically approved "manuscripts" form the basis for two distinctly different modern English PANCHATANTRA translations -- one being Patrick Olivelle's (1997) The Pancatantra: The Book of India's Folk Wisdom from Oxford University Press (a theoretical, multi-sourced and distinctly shorter early 20th century Sanskrit "re-construction"); two being Chandra Rajan's (1993), Vi??u ?arma: The Panchatantra from Penguin Books -- her longer translation being based on the Purnabhadra recension (AD 1199), the oldest surviving Panchatantra manuscript. As well as being a noted Sanskrit scholar, Ms Rajan also comes from a lineage of performing storytellers -- a distinction clarified using many technical performance examples in her more multi-dimensional Introduction.

Both Rajan's and Olivelle's current PANCHATANTRA versions link directly to our oral tradition of physical storytelling. We are drawn to them as we are to the mysteries of pre-historic cave paintings. Here be dragons indeed!

All beast fables from Aesop and the Buddhist Jataka Tales through La Fontaine to Uncle Remus owe this strange, shape-shifting 'book' a huge debt. In its original Arabic format, Kalila and Dimna (The Panchatantra being its Sanskrit precursor), ostensibly constitutes a handbook for rulers, a so-called 'Mirror for Princes' illustrating indirectly, through a cascade of teaching stories and verse, how to (and how not to!) run the kingdom of your life. In their slyly profound grasp of human nature at its best (and worst!) these animal fables indirectly give us -- avoiding any overt moralistic criticism -- indirect and amusing sage counsel, often seasoned with sharp doses of satire.

Based on a collation of translations from key Sanskrit, Syriac, Arabic and Persian texts and a 1570 English version, Wood gives us the first fresh version in either East or West for over 400 years. The unexpectedly dynamism behind such ancient fables shines forth as a great world classic is captured -- renedering it relevant, fascinating and hugely readable.

'A must-read for anyone interested in the masterpieces of world literature -- or just a totally engrossing reading experience.' LISA ALTHER

'Racy, funny, vigorous, contemporary.' DORIS LESSING (2007 Nobel Laureate)

'Stories as closely interfolded as the petals of a rose.' URSULA LE GUIN (2014 National Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters)

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