William Dalrymple (historian)

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William Dalrymple

William Dalrymple
Born March 20, 1965 (1965-03-20) (age 43)
Scotland
Occupation Writer and Historian
Nationality
British
Writing period 1989 -
Genres History, Travel, Non-fiction,
Subjects India, Middle East, Mughal period, Eastern Christianity, Muslim World, Christian-Muslim relations, religious syncretism
Spouse(s) Olivia Fraser
Children 3
Influences
William Dalrymple Official website
For other persons named William Dalrymple, see William Dalrymple (disambiguation).

William Dalrymple (born 20 March 1965 in Scotland) is a historian and writer.

Contents

[edit] Life

Dalrymple was born William Hamilton-Dalrymple, the son of Sir Hew Hamilton-Dalrymple Bt., a cousin of Virginia Woolf. He was educated at Ampleforth College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was first a history exhibitioner then senior history scholar.

Dalrymple is married to the artist Olivia Fraser and has three children. He is a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Society of Literature.

[edit] Interests and Influence

Dalrymple's interests include India, the Middle East, Mughal rule, the Muslim world and early Eastern Christianity. All of his six books have won major literary prizes. His first three were travel books based on his journeys in the Middle East, India and Central Asia. His early influences included the travel writers Robert Byron, Eric Newby and Bruce Chatwin.

More recently, Dalrymple has published a book of essays about South Asia, and two award-winning histories of the interaction between the British and the Mughals between the eighteenth and mid nineteenth century. About these last two works, he has cited the stylistic influence of the narrative histories of Sir Steven Runciman and Simon Schama [1].

He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books [2], The Guardian [3], the New Statesman [4] and The New Yorker [5].

He has written a few articles for Time magazine. Among them he contributed with the article The Real Islam for their 2004 annual issue Asian Journey [6]. He wrote an essay Business as Usual [7] for the India Charges Ahead special issue commemorating 60 years of Indian independence.

He is the founder and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival along with writers Namita Gokhale and Eleanor O’Keeffe. The festival is held annually in the Indian city of Jaipur .[8][9]

Dalrymple spends most of the year in New Delhi, India, but summers in London and Edinburgh. He is now said to be engaged in an extended four-volume history of the Mughal Empire [10].

[edit] Books

Written at age 22 while Dalrymple undertook a journey from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Jerusalem) to the site of Shangdu (Outer Mongolia), known as Xanadu in English literature.

His second book is the culmination of a six-year stay in New Delhi in the '90s.

His third book traces the Eastern Orthodox congregations scattered across the Middle East from their ancient origins, reviews how they've fared under centuries of Islamic rule, and discusses the complex relationship between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity in the region.

This book is a collection of essays from a decade of travel around the Indian subcontinent. It deals with many controversial subjects such as Sati, the caste wars in India, political corruption, and terrorism. It was released in India as At the Court of the Fish-Eyed Goddess.

Dalrymple's fifth book is social history, covering the warm relations that existed between the British and some Indians in the 18th and early 19th century, when one of three British men in India was married to an Indian woman. It documents the interracial liaison between English officer James Achilles Kirkpatrick and an Indian princess. The geopolitical context of late 18th century India is also covered.

Dalrymple edited this historical travel book based on the journals of Fanny Parkes, who resided in India from 1822 to 1846.

His most recent book. It covers the circumstances in which Delhi was taken over by the sepoys during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and the subsequent downfall of the last Mughal, Bahadur Shah Zafar.

[edit] TV and Radio

Dalrymple has written and presented the six part television series Stones of the Raj (Channel 4, August 1997) [11], the three part Indian Journeys (BBC, August 2002) [12] and Sufi Soul (Channel 4, Nov 2005) [13].

The six part Stones of the Raj documents the stories behind some of British India's colonial architecture starting with Lahore (16 August 1997), Calcutta (23 August 1997), The French Connection (30th August 1997), The Fatal Friendship (6 September 1997), Surrey In Tibet (13 September 1997), and concluded with The Magnificent Ruin (20 September 1997).

The trilogy of Indian Journeys consists of three one hour episodes starting with Shiva’s Matted Locks which while tracing the source of the river Ganges, takes Dalrymple on a journey to the Himalayas. The second part City Of Djinns, is based on his travel book of the same name, takes a look at Delhi’s history, and last Doubting Thomas, which takes Dalrymple to the Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, where St Thomas, the Apostle of Jesus is closely associated [14].

Additionally he has done a six-part history series The Long Search for Radio 4 [15]. In this series Dalrymple searches to discover the spiritual roots of the British Isles. As Dalrymple says "In the course of my travels I often came across the assumption that intense spirituality was somehow the preserve of what many call 'the mystic east'... it's a misconception that has always irritated me as I've always regarded our own indigenous British traditions of spirituality as especially rich."

[edit] Achievements

  • In Xanadu - 1990 Yorkshire Post Best First Work Award; Scottish Arts Council Spring Book Award; shortlisted for John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. [16]
  • City of Djinns - 1994 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award and the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award. [17]
  • From the Holy Mountain - Scottish Arts Council Autumn Book Award for 1997; shortlisted for the 1998 Thomas Cook Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize. [18]
  • The Age of Kali - 1998, won the French Prix d'Astrolabe in 2005. [19]
  • White Mughals: Love & Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India (2002) won the Wolfson Prize for History (2002) and the Scottish Book of the Year Prize (2003); also shortlisted for the Kiryama Prize, the PEN History Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.) [20]
  • Awarded the Mungo Park Medal in 2002 by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society for his outstanding contribution to travel literature. [21]
  • The television series Stones of the Raj and Indian Journeys, which he wrote and presented, won him the Grierson Award for Best Documentary Series at BAFTA in 2002. [22]
  • The Long Search, his BBC Radio 4 series on the history of British spirituality and mysticism, won the 2002 Sandford St Martin Prize for Religious Broadcasting and was described by the judges as "thrilling in its brilliance... near perfect radio." [21]
  • In December 2005 his article on the madrasas of Pakistan was awarded the prize for Best Print Article of the Year at the 2005 FPA Media Awards. [23]
  • Received the Sykes Medal in 2005 from the Royal Society of Asian Affairs for his contribution "to understanding contemporary Islam." [24]
  • Received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters, Honoris Causa, from the University of St Andrews (2006) "for his services to literature and international relations, to broadcasting and understanding." [25]
  • On 20 February 2007 The Last Mughal won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize for History and Biography. [26]
  • Received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters, Honoris Causa, from the University of Lucknow (2007) "for his outstanding contribution in literature and history." [27]

[edit] References

  1. ^ An interview with William Dalrymple. Harper Collins. Retrieved on 2007-07-05.
  2. ^ Book review by William Dalrymple. The New York Review of Books. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  3. ^ Articles by William Dalrymple. GuardianUnlimited. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  4. ^ Articles by William Dalrymple. The New York Review of Books. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  5. ^ Articles by William Dalrymple. The New Yorker. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  6. ^ The Real Islam. Time Magazine (2004-08-26). Retrieved on 2007-08-18.
  7. ^ Why India's Rise is Business As Usual. Time Magazine (2007-08-13). Retrieved on 2007-08-18.
  8. ^ Looking for something special? Try treasure hunting in India. KiwiCollection.com. Retrieved on 2008-04-22.
  9. ^ "Writes of passage", Hindustan Times, 2008-01-30. Retrieved on 2008-04-23. 
  10. ^ Delhi had an overwhelming effect on me. Rediff.com (2007-05-07). Retrieved on 2007-08-18.
  11. ^ Stones of the Raj. British Film Institute. Retrieved on 2007-08-18.
  12. ^ BBC World to premiere Indian Journeys 20 August. Channel 4. Retrieved on 2007-08-18.
  13. ^ Sufi Soul. Channel 4. Retrieved on 2007-08-18.
  14. ^ "The voyager - William Dalrymple", Mid Day, 2002-08-09. Retrieved on 2007-08-17. 
  15. ^ The Long Search. BBC. Retrieved on 2007-08-18.
  16. ^ The Last Mughal. Oxford Bookstore. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  17. ^ THOMAS COOK TRAVEL BOOK AWARD 1980-2003. THE BOOKLIST CENTER. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  18. ^ From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium. Stanfords. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  19. ^ Age Of Kali: Indian Travels and Encounters. Stanfords. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  20. ^ White Mughals. The City Circle. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  21. ^ a b William Dalrymple. Contemporary Writers: British Council. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  22. ^ William Dalrymple. Penguin Books India. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  23. ^ Author in Focus: Interview with William Dalrymple. Penguin Books India. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  24. ^ William Dalrymple. Cerebration.Org. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  25. ^ Honorary Degrees June 2006. University of St. Andrews. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  26. ^ Book review by William Dalrymple. The New York Review of Books. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
  27. ^ "Girls steal the show at LU convocation", Express India, 2007-11-18. Retrieved on 2007-11-19. 

[edit] External links