Victory City by Salman Rushdie

She will whisper an empire into existence - but all stories have a way of getting away from their creatorIn the wake of an insignificant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in fourteenth-century southern India, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. After witnessing the death of her mother, the grief-stricken Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for the goddess Parvati, who tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga - literally 'victory city' - the wonder of the world. Over the next two hundred and fifty years, Pampa Kampana's life becomes deeply interwoven with Bisnaga's as she attempts to make good on the task that Parvati set for her: to give women equal agency in a patriarchal world.

But all stories have a way of getting away from their creator, and as years pass, rulers come and go, battles are won and lost, and allegiances shift, Bisnaga is no exception. "No one, and I mean no one, can bring an entire world to life with the authority, wisdom, humor and panache of Salman Rushdie." Gary Shteyngart