“A rare and incandescent book”. – Trisha Gupta in India Today

 “Among contemporary Indian writers in English, there aren’t many who can write fiction as if it were poetry and do as good a job of it as Sharanya Manivannan.” – Tanuj Solanki in Scroll

“Manivannan’s writing is honest, beautiful and compassionate. Her recreation of 7th-century Tamil society is believable, and her storytelling, hypnotic. Her poetic prose serves as a delightful and sensual channel for Andal’s life, love and art. The poet-goddess could not have picked a better medium.” – Urmi Chanda-Vaz in The Hindu Business Line

“Manivannan weaves an impressive story that feels new while drawing from the familiar.” – Krupa Ge in Firstpost

“Kodhai’s every metaphor, every daydream is laced with the imagery of the earth, both local and distant. In Manivannan’s characteristically lyrical style, the prose is sensual and tactile. She mines the tropes within Andal’s own writing to create Kodhai’s unique voice which combines storytelling and poetry.” – Urvashi Bahuguna in Scroll

“The Queen of Jasmine Country celebrates both love and womanhood like never before.” – Soumyabrata Gupta in Deccan Chronicle / The Asian Age

“The quality of sensuality and earthiness in Manivannan’s writing goes right to the reader’s bones, and I have had to stop to breathe, to stay with and feel the feelings rather than rush on with the reading.” – Kiranjeet Chaturvedi, Birdsong & Beyond

“Remarkable… A torch song of both love, and freedom.” – Shreya Ila Anasuya in Verve

“Long after you have finished the little book, the warmth of Manivannan’s words and the intricately imagined world of Kodhai will continue to hum in your head.” – Devapriya Roy in ScoopWhoop

“There’s much lush lyricism here, born out of the natural beauty of Kodhai’s small world, and one wonders if this is indeed the poet-saint herself writing about her life.” – Pooja Pillai in The Indian Express

[A] lyrical fable seeped in strong, indigenous, sensual prose” – Resh Susan in Huffington Post 

“Exquisite prose and the journey of a sublimely emancipated girl whose ‘words will themselves become prayers’… [A] garland of a book.”– Lisa Rani Ray

“This book was just so beautiful! So, so damn beautiful!”  – Booxoul 

“A compelling testament on art, beauty, poetry and magic in prose that is way out of the normal league. This is legend.” – Hey DJ – Spin That Wheel

“I’m in love with each and every page of this book.” – Ronak R. Shah

“I found myself immersed in the feel of the words: there is so much power and depth in the words strung together, like a garland, each word chosen with care and which are full of depth and rich meaning.” — Chitra Ahanthem in Books And Conversations

“[The] Queen of Jasmine Country shows you the power of language when poets pen down a novel, this is where the play of language and the elegance of poetry comes into play.” – Sahil Pradhan in A Hindu’s View

“These words that Sharanya uses to describe what Kodhai (who later goes on to become Andal) felt in the book, might as well describe Sharanya’s own relationship with words. She weaves them majestically like they weave silk threads, delicately soft, yet strong, firm and unbreakable.” – Anushree K in Women’s Web

“It was like a thunderstorm of a love affair that leaves no scar yet lingers forever in who you become because of it.” – from an interview by Soumyabrata Gupta in Deccan Chronicle

“So who was she really – this young woman from over a thousand years ago? What filled her nights and days, and led her to write such intense, vivid poetry? This is what my novel is about – going beyond her legend, and reading between her own lines.” – from an interview by Rochana Mohan in The New Indian Express

“If you strip the fancy alangaram, the gem-encrusted hagiography, and see what’s really there – a young woman so desperate for love that she fasts and prays for it – I think you’ll see her as she came to me, too.” – from an interview by Kiran Manral in SheThePeople

“So Kodhai dreaming of the mythical landscape of Ayarpadi gives birth to another rendition of herself within that dream, committed to permanence in her poetry; and then there was me here in the 21st century spending my nights and days imagining Puduvai, conjuring up a whole life. Dreaming of the dreamer, who dreamt within my dream of her.” – from an interview by Nidhi Verma in Platform Magazine

“It was not the goddess Andal who came to me as a muse but a teenager named Kodhai, who lived in the 9th century and wrote incandescent and anguished poems, never knowing what would eventually become of them.” – from an interview by Varsha Naik in Free Press Journal

“Kodhai certainly knew the vision of those peaks. It is easy to imagine her: walking deeper into the forest, lifting her hems as she crossed small streams, stopping for elephant traffic, while the magnolia she tucked into her ear wilts through the course of the day. I lift my eyes to the mountains and drink in the certainty that what I see is very close to what she too must have seen.” – a travelogue in The Punch Magazine

“I felt as though a peacock had suddenly swept in from a place of camouflage, tail unfolded, and rearranged the world with its resplendence.” – an excerpt in Scroll

“I grew along with the fence of sugarcane. My teeth, when they came in, grew strong on the flesh of those stalks.” – an excerpt in Harper Broadcast