Dalrymple, William

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Dalrymple, William

PERSONAL:

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland; married Olivia Fraser (an artist); children: three. Education: Trinity College, Cambridge University (graduated).

ADDRESSES:

Home—London, England, and New Delhi, India. E-mail—wdalrymple1@aol.com.

CAREER:

Writer, historian, travel writer, and television and radio host. Hosted the series The Stones of the Raj and Indian Journeys, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Presented The Long Search, a series on the history of British spirituality and mysticism, BBC Radio 4.

MEMBER:

Royal Society of Literature (fellow), Royal Asiatic Society (fellow).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Yorkshire Post Best First Work Award, and Scottish Arts Council Spring Book Award, both 1990, John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize shortlist, all for In Xanadu; Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, and Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award, both 1994, both for City of Djinns; Scottish Arts Council Autumn Book Award, 1997, Thomas Cook Award shortlist, 1998, John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial prize shortlist, Duff Cooper Prize shortlist, all for From the Holy Mountain; Mungo Park Medal, Royal Scottish Geographical Society, for "outstanding contribution to travel literature"; Grierson Award for Best Documentary Series, BAFTA, 2002, for Stones of the Raj and Indian Journeys (television programs); Sandford St. Martin Prize for Religious Broadcasting, 2002, for The Long Search (radio program); Wolfson Prize for History, and Scottish Book of the Year Prize, both 2003, PEN History Award shortlist, Kiryama Prize Shortlist, and James Tait Black Memorial Prize shortlist, all for White Mughals; FPA Media Award, Best Print Article of the Year, 2005, for article on the madrasas of Pakistan; French Prix D'Astrolabe, 2005, for The Age of Kali; Duff Cooper Prize for History and Biography, 2007, for The Last Mughal. Recipient of honorary degree from the University of St. Andrews.

WRITINGS:

In Xanadu: A Quest, Vintage (New York, NY), 1990.

City of Djinns: A Year of Delhi, illustrated by Olivia Fraser, Indus (New Delhi, India), 1993, HarperCollins (London, England), 1993, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 2003.

From the Holy Mountain: A Journey among the Christians of the Middle East, HarperCollins (London, England), 1997, Holt (New York, NY), 1998.

At the Court of the Fish-Eyed Goddess: Travels in the Indian Subcontinent, HarperCollins (New Delhi, India), 1998.

The Age of Kali, HarperCollins (London, England), 1999.

(Author of introduction) Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs, and White Mughals, Eland (London, England), 2002.

White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India, Viking (New York, NY), 2003.

The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857, Bloomsbury (London, England), 2006, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 2007.

ADAPTATIONS:

City of Djinns: An Album by Angés Montanari is based on Dalrymple's book City of Djinns: A Year of Delhi. Author's books have been the basis for the BBC television series The Stones of the Raj and Indian Journeys. White Mughals is under option for film.

SIDELIGHTS:

Scottish travel writer William Dalrymple has received critical and popular acclaim for his travel books on his sojourns in Asia and the Middle East. Dalrymple began his writing career after reading a newspaper article about the opening of the Karakoram Highway between Pakistan and China. The report prompted him to realize his childhood dream of following in the footsteps of Marco Polo along Asia's Silk Road. With some modest financial help from his Cambridge University tutors, he was off. He set out on his journey, traveling through remote regions of Iran, Pakistan, and China, eventually reaching his goal: Xanadu.

His account of his adventures, In Xanadu: A Quest, was considered richly detailed and entertaining. Observing that the book is less a quest than a light adventure, London Review of Books critic Graham Coster praised its humor and energy. Comparing the author to Paul Theroux and V.S. Naipaul, Coster noted that Dalrymple shares some of Theroux's attraction to the absurd but conveys more optimism and confidence than do either Theroux or Naipaul. Though he found Dalrymple's journey "boyishly entertaining," Coster pointed out that his "nonquest" was essentially so vague that when the author reached his destination, he could not decide on an appropriate way to end his book. Reviewing In Xanadu for New Statesman, Carole Mansur also praised its humor, which she considered in the "‘eccentric Brit meets funny foreigner’ tradition." But she found as well that the book contained serious scholarly passages on history and architecture. In the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Charles Solomon praised In Xanadu for its detailed descriptions and its "highly entertaining blend of geography, personal anecdote, and history."

After his trek along the Silk Road, Dalrymple went to India, where he lived in Delhi for about five years. This experience was the basis for his second book, City of Djinns: A Year of Delhi, illustrated by his artist wife, Olivia Fraser. Again, critics admired Dalrymple's humor and ability to find interesting people with stories to include in the book—among them a Mogul princess, a group of eunuchs, and a batch of eccentric British characters who stayed in India after the country gained independence. A reviewer for the Economist found City of Djinns "informative, learned, and funny" and enjoyed its enthusiasm and scope. Dervla Murphy, in the Spectator, praised the book as a "series of unpretentiously scholarly and marvelously entertaining historical vignettes, deftly interwoven with personal experiences, impressions, and opinions." Times Literary Supplement reviewer Firdaus Kanga, however, found City of Djinns as flawed as it was funny. Calling the book's portrait of the city a "Disneyland Delhi," Kanga complained that Dalrymple "expects very little intelligence, and certainly no knowledge, on the part of his readers" and fails to explore many issues in sufficient depth, including sexuality, British imperialism, and spirituality. But Kanga appreciated the author's comic touches—especially his "fun with Indian-English"—and concluded that "this is surely one of the funniest books about India by an innocent abroad."

Dalrymple's next book, From the Holy Mountain: A Journey among the Christians of the Middle East, was also based on a journey of discovery. Inspired by the writings of Byzantine monk John Moschos, Dalrymple set out on a pilgrimage from the Holy Mountain, an Orthodox monastery in Greece, to Cairo. He followed the path of Moschos and his pupil, Sophronius the Sophist, who traveled through the region from A.D. 578 to 615. In his journey, Dalrymple observed the conflicts between Muslim and Christian groups in an area where religious pluralism had once thrived. The author found that Christianity has suffered an extreme decline in the region—one acquaintance informed him that the world's largest community of Nestorian Christians now exists not in Syria but in England.

Spectator reviewer Philip Marsden observed that From the Holy Mountain was more "hard hitting" than Dalrymple's previous books and was "driven by indignation." Marsden praised the book's wide scope and clear judgments, observing that it is "the most rewarding sort of travel book, combining flashes of lightly worn scholarship with a powerful sense of place and the immediacy of the best journalism…. [I]t is a genuine cri de coeur for a forgotten people which few readers … will be able to resist." When From the Holy Mountain appeared in a U.S. edition, a Publishers Weekly contributor called it an "exhilarating mosaic" from a "born travel writer."

The Age of Kali is a collection of nineteen essays that continue Dalrymple's study of India. According to Hindu scriptures, history is divided into four epochs, one being the epoch of Kali Yug. George Evans of Contemporary Review explained: "India suffers from many ills but it is hard to believe, as a great many Indians apparently do, that she is now in the throes of the Kali Yug, the age of Kali, an epoch in Hindu cosmology of strife, corruption, darkness, and disintegration." Dalrymple's book, according to Ravi Shenoy in the Library Journal, "portray[s] the Indian subcontinent (including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Reunion, an island in the Indian Ocean) in the 1990s." Geographical Magazine's Ciara Shannon wrote: "If you are looking for a greater insight into the Indian subcontinent, The Age of Kali is a must read." Shannon concluded that the book "untangles some of the mystery" of India and its surrounding areas, but "still manages to leave the magic to glow."

Dalrymple's next book, White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India, examines the history of India. The time of the ‘White Mughals,’ noted Francis Robinson in Times Literary Supplement, "was the time when Europeans lived like Indians, spoke Indian languages, wore Indian dress, and loved Indian women. It was a time when civilizations fused rather than clashed." Robison continued: "Dalrymple has evoked the world of the British in late eighteenth-century India as no one has before." The book tells the story of the British major, James Achilles Kirkpatrick, Resident of the East India Company, who was staying in the house of Baqar Ali Khan in Hyderabad, India. Kirkpatrick fell in love with Khair un-Nissa, the grand-daughter of Baqar Ali Khan, and their relationship gradually developed. Kirkpatrick adopted the traditional Indian dress and customs. Eventually, the two were married and had children. When the children reached the appropriate age, Kirkpatrick sent them to England to be educated. Khair was saddened by the departure of her children, and became more depressed when Kirkpatrick was called to Calcutta on business. While away, Kirkpatrick fell ill and passed away at just forty-one years of age. Soon after, Khair died at the young age of twenty seven, supposedly of a broken heart. Dalrymple continues the story after the tragic deaths of Kirkpatrick and Khair, as he tracks what happened to the couple's children. Their son died in England at a young age, but their daughter, Kitty, managed to trace her roots back to Hyderabad and develop a relationship with her grandmother.

A contributor to Kirkus Reviews noted that the research Dalrymple poured into White Mughals is "extensive, meticulous, even astonishing." Lee Langley in the Spectator commented that, while sometimes Dalrymple went overboard with the historical research, he nonetheless "interweaves the bright threads of drama and romance with more sober strands of scholarly research." Langley noted that in characterizing Kirkpatrick, Dalrymple conveyed a man who was "kind, honorable, romantic" and who "survived several career-threatening scandals brought about by his passionate involvement with the Mughal princess, Khair un-Nissa." Dalrymple "is illuminating on the power of women in late Mughal India, the mutual exchange of ideas, and customs between Hindu and Muslim (almost unthinkable today), and," continued Langley, "reminds us that beneath the European conquest and imposition of European ways there lay a more intriguing story, ‘the Indian conquest of the European imagination.’" According to Pankaj Mishra on the Guardian Web site, White Mughals "is never more engaging than when, spurning polemic and theory, Dalrymple describes, with a novelist's compassion, the tragic costs of his [Kirkpatrick's] rebellion."

In The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857, Dalrymple explores in depth the decline of the Mughal Dynasty in India, the Indian uprising against British rule, the battle for Delhi, and the tragic last days of the final Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar. In the summer of 1857, India had long been under the control of the British East India Company. Zafar, more than eighty years old, occupied the throne in Delhi, the last ruler of a dynasty that had survived for more than 350 years. A gentle, intellectual, and artistic man, Zafar was a direct descendant of both Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, and he presided over a court in a culture that was a "model of intellectual sophistication and religious tolerance," commented Jan Dalley in the New Statesman. In the background, however, the racial and religious pressures of British rule were becoming intolerable. An uprising of Indian sepoys, or soldiers, started in the north, and quickly grew out of control, with rebels marching from all around India to take Delhi. In the process, they indiscriminately slaughtered Europeans they encountered. Though Zafar was aged and feeble, and ineffective as a leader, the sepoys appointed him as head of the rebellion. "No one could have been less suited to lead a revolt, especially at the age of eighty-two," observed David Gilmour in the Spectator. As figurehead of the rebellion, Zafar failed to act decisively when conditions favored him. Soon, the revolt was violently put down by the British, and retaliation was brutal. Zafar's role in the revolt led to the loss of British favor, and he was tried and exiled to Rangoon, where he died at age eighty-seven. "This magnificently detailed ac- count of the uprising and its aftermath draws on documents translated from the Persian and Urdu, including first-hand Indian reports" that had been largely ignored and unused by other historians, Dalley noted. In the end, Dalrymple's book is "neither wholly a biography of Zafar, nor solely the story of the siege and capture of Delhi. Instead Mr. Dalrymple charts the course of the uprising and the siege, weaving into his story the unfolding tragedy of Zafar's last months," stated a reviewer in the Economist.

"Fans of Dalrymple know him as an author of crisply written works of nonfiction drawn from his travels and historical research, books so full of drama and memorable characters they read like novels. His latest work won't disappoint them," remarked Aravind Adiga in Time International. Dalrymple "presents a brilliant, evocative exploration of a doomed world and its final emperor," stated a Publishers Weekly contributor. Dalley called the book a "capacious, vivid and highly readable study of the last days of Mughal rule." Booklist critic Gilbert Taylor concluded that Dalrymple's "riveting narrative will engross readers of the annals of British imperialism."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Asian Affairs, June, 1999, Maurice Zinkin, review of The Age of Kali, p. 224.

Atlantic Monthly, January, 1995, Phoebe-Lou Adams, review of City of Djinns: A Year of Delhi, p. 107.

Booklist, March 15, 2007, Gilbert Taylor, review of The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857, p. 17.

Books and Culture, May, 2002, "Forgotten Christians," review of From the Holy Mountain: A Journey among the Christians of the Middle East, p. 34; July-August, 2002, Philip Yancey and John Wilson, "Islam and the Middle East: A Conversation on Books About," p. 22.

Bookseller, June 13, 2003, "Dalrymple Best Scot.," p. 6; November 25, 2005, Nicholas Clee and Benedicte Page, "William Dalrymple Signs with Bloomsbury," p. 15; July 28, 2006, Benedicte Page, "India's Stalingrad: William Dalrymple's New Book, the Last Mughal, Explores the 19th-century Indian Mutiny and the Four-month Siege of Delhi—and Its Direct Impact on Religious Extremism Today. He Talks to Benedicte Page," interview with William Dalrymple, p. 18.

Book World, April 1, 2007, review of The Last Mughal, p. 9.

Contemporary Review, July, 1999, George Evans, review of The Age of Kali, p. 47.

Economist, September 11, 1993, review of City of Djinns, p. 88; November 11, 2006, "Last of the Line; the Mughal Empire," review of The Last Mughal, p. 96.

Financial Times, October 21, 2006, Jo Johnson, "End of the Emperor an Old India Hand Explores the Behavior of the British and the Locals after the Indian Mutiny," review of The Last Mughal, p. 28.

Geographical Magazine, January, 1999, Ciara Shannon, review of The Age of Kali, p. 68; November, 2003, Christian Amodeo, "A Scotsman in India: William Dalrymple's Meticulously Researched Books Have Made Him One of the Most Popular Travel Writers of His Generation. As He Begins the Follow-up to the Award-winning White Mughals, He Talks to Christian Amodeo about Islam, India and International Politics," interview with William Dalrymple, p. 67; January, 2007, "A Sad Tale of the End of Empire," review of The Last Mughal, p. 90.

Guardian (Manchester, England), November 11, 2006, Geoffrey Moorhouse, "Zafar the Ditherer," review of The Last Mughal.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2003, review of White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India, p. 200.

Library Journal, May 1, 2000, Ravi Shenoy, review of The Age of Kali, p. 142; August, 2001, Barbara Hoffert, review of City of Djinns.

London Review of Books, July 26, 1990, review of In Xanadu: A Quest, p. 18.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 2, 1990, review of In Xanadu, p. 14.

Nation, April 30, 2007, "Inevitable Revolutions," p. 25.

New Statesman, September 8, 1989, Carole Mansur, review of In Xanadu, p. 36; October 30, 2006, Jan Dalley, "Last Days of Empire," p. 56.

New York Times Book Review, May 31, 1998, review of From the Holy Mountain, p. 12; April 18, 1999, review of From the Holy Mountain, p. 32; April 22, 2007, Tobin Harshaw, "King of Delhi," review of The Last Mughal, p. 17.

Observer (London, England), July 25, 1999, review of The Age of Kali, p. 14.

Publishers Weekly, August 10, 1990, review of In Xanadu, p. 438; November 21, 1994, review of City of Djinns, p. 65; January 26, 1998, review of From the Holy Mountain, p. 76; February 17, 2003, review of White Mughals, p. 65; February 19, 2007, review of The Last Mughal, p. 159.

Spectator, September 18, 1993, Dervla Murphy, review of City of Djinns, pp. 36-37; April 19, 1997, Philip Marsden, review of From the Holy Mountain, p. 39; January 9, 1999, Robert Twigger, review of The Age of Kali, p. 31; October 12, 2002, Lee Langley, "Before the Rot Set In," review of White Mughals, p. 70; October 7, 2006, David Gilmour, "The End of the Imperial Line," review of The Last Mughal.

Time International, February 19, 2007, Aravind Adiga, "For God and Empire," review of The Last Mughal, p. 45.

Times Literary Supplement, September 29, 1989, Michael Alexander, review of In Xanadu, p. 1073; October 29, 1993, Firdaus Kanga, review of City of Djinns, p. 29; February 19, 1999, Sarah Curits, review of The Age of Kali, p. 31; October 11, 2002, Francis Robinson, "Mixed Fortunes," review of White Mughals, p. 10; November 24, 2006, "King of the Castle," p. 32.

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January-February, 2002, Nabil Matar, review of From the Holy Mountain, p. 104.