Rama pushed against a labyrinth of isolating false starts. Engulfed by controversy, without resources, and determined to fight death, Rama built a home for famine victims. Would this be her labyrinth's center or another dead end?
Educated and inquisitive, Pandita Ramabai was born in 1858 near Gangamul in the Western Ghat mountains of southern India. The daughter of a Sanskrit scholar, she rose to become a respected scholar herself, in a time when women rarely held such positions. But having lost nearly everyone she loved to famine or cholera, Rama spent most of her life in search of a community she could call home. A widow and single mother, she became a social activist and reformer, relentlessly advocating for the education of women and the care of India’s many poor, widowed child-brides.
Rama’s journey takes readers across British India to England and America as this strong, determined woman battles prejudice, tradition and a male-dominated society to find justice for those with no voice or opportunity. The Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission, which she founded during a severe famine, became home to thousands of outcast children, child widows, orphans, and other destitute women. It is still active today. As one of the world’s great, unsung heroines, Pandita Ramabai has been called one of India’s “greatest daughters.”
Sandra’s latest book, Saxon Heroines: A Northumbrian Novel, is available in eBook and print editions at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Google Play and Kobo. Her previous books Two Coins: A Biographical Novel and Rama’s Labyrinth: A Biographical Novel are available in print and eBook editions at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Google Play and Kobo, and in audiobook editions at Amazon, Nook, Audible, Apple Books, and Kobo. Two Coins is narrated by Deepti Gupta and Noah Michael Levine. Rama’s Labyrinth is narrated by Deepti Gupta.
Sandra blogs weekly about topics related to her travels, writing life, and the incongruities of life in general.
To get periodic updates, sign up for the eNewsletter or subscribe to Sandra's blog via RSS.
