Giving a Voice to the Buddha's Wife: A conversation with Vanessa R. Sasson

Vanessa R. Sasson, author of “Yasodhara: A Novel About the Buddha’s Wife”, in conversation with Jaipur Bytes host Lakshya Datta. In this podcast-exclusive, Vanessa and Lakshya talk about why she wanted to tell this story, what it was like to write in Yasodhara’s voice, and how the process of writing this book changed how she felt about the Buddha. Vanessa is a professor of Religious Studies in the Liberal and Creative Arts and Humanities Department at Marianopolis College, Quebec. She is also a Research Fellow for the International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice at the University of the Free State in South Africa, as well as Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Religious Studies of McGill University, Montreal. As a scholar, her focus is on Buddhist studies, with particular emphasis on hagiography, gender and childhoods. She will be speaking at JLF Toronto on September 28.