william dalrymple
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The Golden Road: Dalrymple celebrates the wonder that was India
The historian A.L. Basham wrote a book called The Wonder That Was India. William Dalrymple ringingly extols the wonders of that land in The Golden Road, offering a paean to ancient India as a fountainhead of human civilisation. Dalrymple paints a fascinating portrait of a civilisation that, for over a millennium, was a beacon of… Read more
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The sexy Mughals
City of Djinns: A Year In Delhi by William DalrympleThe foppish, snobbish Indian Muslim nobility were no different from the French and English aristocrats. They were as cultured, sophisticated and sensual. Eighteenth century Indian Muslim aristocrats visiting each other exchanged poems like the Restoration wits — with one difference: the poems were not self-composed but… Read more
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Naipaul on “the last great Indian kingdom”
I am reading William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns after finishing VS Naipaul’s Magic Seeds. The two books couldn’t be more different. Dalrymple’s book is a delightful read, rich in anecdotes about modern Delhi and loving evocations of its past. Dalrymple admires the Muslims who ruled Delhi for centuries for their beautiful buildings, their love of… Read more
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