Victory City

Content Warning: The section of the guide contains mentions of sexual abuse and misogyny.

The narrator of Victory City explains that the story is adapted from an “immense narrative poem” (3) by a poet and prophetess named Pampa Kampana, who died at the age of 247. The poem was found in a clay pot. It was originally written in Sanskrit and titled Jayaparajaya, which means Victory and Defeat. The poem spans 24,000 verses and describes the rise and fall of the Bisnaga Empire, a unique empire that appeared in Southern India in the 14th century. The narrator admits to not being a scholar or a poet. As a result, Pampa’s story will be retold in “plainer language” (4).

The story begins in the 14th century in what is now the south of India. An old king named Kampila Raya rules over the tiny principality of Kampili, which is where Pampa is born and raised. When Pampa is nine, the Kampili army is defeated in a lopsided battle with a much stronger army representing the sultan in Delhi, to the north. To the people of Kampili, this battle is cataclysmic, but from a broader