If you've read Phoenix, you may have noticed that it doesn't have an epigraph – the quote that sometimes comes at the beginning of a book. But I'm doing a series of blogs about the three epigraphs that I considered. The first one is here, and it explains why I ended up without one.
The second epigraph I considered for Phoenix comes from The Bhagavad-Gita (श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता in Sanskrit). This is a 700-verse ancient Hindu scripture that is part of the epic Mahabhrata.
The section I considered using as an epigraph was famously quoted by the physicist J Robert Oppenheimer on the first explosion of an atomic bomb, in 1945.
"If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky,
That would be like the splendour of the Mighty One…
I am become Death, The destroyer of Worlds."
There is one more epigraph to come. I'll make a blog about it soon!
