William Dalrymple (historian)
William Dalrymple (actually: William Hamilton - Dalrymple, born March 20, 1965 in Scotland) is a travel writer, historian, art critic, foreign correspondent and founder of the largest literary festival in Asia.
Life
Dalrymple, William Hamilton - Dalrymple actually, is the son of Sir Hew Hamilton - Dalrymple, a cousin of the writer Virginia Woolf.
He attended Ampleforth College and Trinity College ( Cambridge ), where he studied history.
Dalrymple is married to the artist Olkivia Fraser. The couple has three children and lives alternately in Delhi, Edinburgh and London.
Since 2004, Dalrymple 's South East Asia correspondent for the New Statesman. He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Society of Literature.
He is the founder of the Jaipur Literature Festival, which he still directs together with writer Namita Gokhale. This literary festival is the largest of its kind in Asia and was described by The Daily Beast as "the greatest literary show on earth ".
Work
Dalrymple's area of interest is South East Asia with a focus on India and Pakistan. But he also writes about the Middle East.
It concerned itself with Buddhism, Hinduism, the Jain religion and early eastern Christian communities. All his books are - have been excellent - multiple part.
According to the company Dalrymple sees his work influenced by Robert Byron, Eric Newby and Bruce Chatwin.
His books have been translated into French, Dutch, Czech, Japanese, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu and German.
He is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, the New Statesman and The Guardian of The New Yorker, but has also contributed several articles for Time Magazine and the German edition of Lettre International.
High appreciation among historians and readers, especially enjoy Dalrymple's works on the history of Mughal rule and his volumes of essays on modern India.
Selection from the work
- In Xanadu, 1989
- City of Djinns, 1994
- From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium, 1997
- The Age of Kali, 1998
- White Mughals, 2002
- Begum, Thugs & White Mughals - The Journals of Fanny Parkes, 2002
- The Last Mughal, The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857 2006
- Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India, 2009 German: Nine Lives. Heading into the heart of India, translated by Matthias Fienbork; Berlin Verlag, Berlin ISBN 978-3-8270-0917-3.