City of Djinns is the portrait of a city as has never been attempted before. Meeting an extraordinary array of characters, from the city's elusive eunuchs to the embattled descendants of the great Moghuls, from the nouveauriche Punjabis to the last witnesses of the British Raj, and investigating the resonances of these people and their ways with the India of the past, this is a unique and dazzling feat of research and adventure by one of the finest writers of his generation. Watched over and protected by the mischievous djinns - spirits invisible to the naked eye, 'like us in all things, but fashioned from fire' - Delhi has been saved many times over the centuries. From the desolate, run-down graveyards in which partridge-fighting has drawn crowds for hundreds of years to the exquisite palaces of the old city which now lie empty and crumbling, Dalrymple comes to know this bewildering place intimately. He conveys the magical nature of this city at the meeting point of all the great cultures of South Asia, a city that has been destroyed and rebuilt, forever being reborn under the care of its guardian djinns.

City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

History

DALRYMPLE, WILLIAM

Asia

Harpercollins

James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at the court of Hyderabad when he met Khair un-Nissa - "Most Excellent among Women" - the great niece of the Prime Minister of Hyderabad. He fell in love with her and overcame many obstacles to marry her, converting to Islam and according to Indian sources becoming a double-agent working against the East India Company. It is a remarkable story, involving secret assignations, court intrigue, harem politics, religious and family disputes. But such things were not unknown; from the early 16th century, when the Inquisition banned the Portuguese in Goa from wearing the dhoti, to the eve of the Indian Mutiny, the 'white Mughals' who wore local dress and adopted Indian ways were a source of embarrassment to successive colonial administrations. William Dalrymple unearths such colourful figures as 'Hindoo Stuart', who travelled with his own team of Brahmins to maintain his templeful of idols; and Sir David Auchterlony, who took all 13 of his Indian wives out for evening promenades, each on the back of their own elephant. In "White Mughals", William Dalrymple discovers a world almost entirely unexplored by history, and places at its centre a compelling tale of seduction and betrayal.

White Mughals

HARPER/COLLINS

, 385 pages, SIGNED by William Dalrymple on the title page

Age of Kali Travels and Encounters In Indi

Travel

This is an account of the quest which took William Dalrymple and his companions across the width of Asia, along dusty, forgotten roads, through villages and cities full of unexpected hospitality and wildly improbable escapades

In Xanadu

Flamingo

Featured in the pages of The Age of Kali are flashy Bombay drinks parties and violent village blood feuds as well as a group of vegetarian terrorists intent on destroying India's first Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet.

The age of Kali: Indian travels & encounters

Peeling back the layers of Delhi’s centuries-old history, City of Djinns is an irresistible blend of research and adventure. Sparkling with irrepressible wit, City of Djinns peels back the layers of Delhi's centuries-old history, revealing an extraordinary array of characters along the way-from eunuchs to descendants of great Moguls. With refreshingly open-minded curiosity, William Dalrymple explores the seven "dead" cities of Delhi as well as the eighth city—today's Delhi. Underlying his quest is the legend of the djinns, fire-formed spirits that are said to assure the city's Phoenix-like regeneration no matter how many times it is destroyed. Entertaining, fascinating, and informative, City of Djinns is an irresistible blend of research and adventure.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Penguin??Books

White Mughals is the romantic and ultimately tragic tale of a passionate love affair that crossed and transcended all the cultural, religious and political boundaries of its time.James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad when in 1798 he glimpsed Kahir un-Nissa—'Most excellent among Women'—the great-niece of the Nizam's Prime Minister and a descendant of the Prophet. Kirkpatrick had gone out to India as an ambitious soldier in the army of the East India Company, eager to make his name in the conquest and subjection of the subcontinent. Instead, he fell in love with Khair and overcame many obstacles to marry her—not least of which was the fact that she was locked away in purdah and engaged to a local nobleman. Eventually, while remaining Resident, Kirkpatrick converted to Islam, and according to Indian sources even became a double-agent working for the Hyderabadis against the East India Company.
It is a remarkable story, involving secret assignations, court intrigue, harem politics, religious and family disputes. But such things were not unknown; from the early sixteenth century, when the Inquisition banned the Portuguese in Goa from wearing the dhoti, to the eve of the Indian mutiny, the 'white Mughals' who wore local dress and adopted Indian ways were a source of embarrassments to successive colonial administrations. William Dalrymple unearths such colourful figures as 'Hindoo Stuart', who travelled with his own team of Brahmins to maintain his temple of idols, and who spent many years trying to persuade the memsahibs of Calcutta to adopt the sari; and Sir David Ochterlony, Kirkpatrick's counterpart in Delhi, who took all thirteen of his wives out for evening promenades, each on the back of their own elephant.
In White Mughals, William Dalrymple discovers a world almost entirely unexplored by history, and places at its centre a compelling tale of love, seduction and betrayal. It possesses all the sweep and resonance of a great nineteenth-century novel, set against a background of shifting alliances and the manoeuvring of the great powers, the mercantile ambitions of the British and the imperial dreams of Napoleon. White Mughals, the product of five years' writing and research, triumphantly confirms Dalrymple's reputation as one of the finest writers at work today.

White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India

Literature & Fiction

British & Irish

Penguin

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

From the author of The Last Mughal (“A compulsively readable masterpiece” —The New York Review of Books), an exquisite, mesmerizing book that illuminates the remarkable ways in which traditional forms of religious life in India have been transformed in the vortex of the region’s rapid change—a book that distills the author’s twenty-five years of travel in India, taking us deep into ways of life that we might otherwise never have known exist. A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet—and spends the rest of his life atoning for the violence by hand printing the finest prayer flags in India . . . A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her closest friend ritually starve herself to death . . . A woman leaves her middle-class life in Calcutta and finds unexpected fulfillment living as a Tantric in an isolated, skull-filled cremation ground . . . A prison warder from Kerala is worshipped as an incarnate deity for three months of every year . . . An idol carver, the twenty-third in a long line of sculptors, must reconcile himself to his son’s desire to study computer engineering . . . An illiterate goatherd from Rajasthan keeps alive in his memory an ancient four-thousand-stanza sacred epic . . . A temple prostitute, who initially resisted her own initiation into sex work, pushes both her daughters into a trade she nonetheless regards as a sacred calling. William Dalrymple chronicles these lives with expansive insight and a spellbinding evocation of circumstance. And while the stories reveal the vigorous resilience of individuals in the face of the relentless onslaught of modernity, they reveal as well the continuity of ancient traditions that endure to this day. A dazzling travelogue of both place and spirit.

Leaders & Notable People

KNOPF

From the author of The Last Mughal, an enlightening book that explores with remarkable compassion and expansive insight nine varieties of religious devotion in India today. In portraits of people we might otherwise never know William Dalrymple distills his twenty-five years of travel in India to explore the challenges faced by practitioners of traditional forms of faith in contemporary India. For two months a year, a man in Kerala divides his time between jobs as a prison warden and a well-builder and his calling as an incarnate deity. A temple prostitute watches her two daughters die from AIDS after entering a trade she regards as a sacred calling. A Jain nun recalls the pain of watching her closest friend ritually starve herself to death. Together, these tales reveal the resilience of individuals in the face of the relentless onslaught of modernity, the enduring legacy of tradition, and the hope and honor that can be found even in the most unlikely places.

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India (Vintage Departures)

Arts & Literature

Vintage

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by DALRYMPLE, WILLIAM. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by DALRYMPLE, WILLIAM

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by DALRYMPLE, WILLIAM. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

White Mughals

Age of Kali Travels and Encounters In Indi

In Xanadu

The age of Kali: Indian travels & encounters

City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India

City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India (Vintage Departures)