Praise for White Mughals
“William Dalrymple is that rarity, a scholar of history who can really write. His story of cultural collisions is beautifully told, and brings British India vividly back to life; but it is also a tale with many contemporary echoes. This is a brilliant and compulsively readable book.”
—Salman Rushdie
“White Mughals is destined to become an instant classic. William Dalrymple has crafted a tale of romance and nostalgia that echoes in the ears like exotic birdsong. The history of India courses through his veins; the humanity of the past flows from his heart.”
—Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire
“At the end of the eighteenth century, James Achilles Kirkpatrick, the promising young British Resident at the Shia court of Hyderabad , fell in love with Khair un-Nissa, an adolescent noblewoman and a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. The story of their romance and semi-secret marriage endured in local legend and family lore but was otherwise forgotten. After five years’ work with a trove of documents in several languages, Dalrymple has emerged not only with a gripping tale of politics and power but also with evidence of the surprising extent of cultural exchange in pre-Victorian India, before the arrogance of empire set in. His book, ambitious in scope and rich in detail, demonstrates that a century before Kipling’s ‘never the twain’—and two centuries before neocons and radical Islamists trumpeted the clash of civilizations—the story of the Westerner in Muslim India was not one of conquest but of appreciation, adaptation, and seduction.”
—The New Yorker
“A gorgeous, spellbinding and important book . . . A tapestry of magnificent set pieces and a moving romance. William Dalrymple’s story of a colonial love affair will change our views about British India.”
—Sunday Times (London)
“Imaginatively conceived, beautifully written, intellectually challenging and a passionate love story—this is Dalrymple’s lifetime achievement and the best book he has ever written. He has done for India and the British what Edward Said did for the meeting between the West and the Arab world in Orientalism. Destroying the centuries-old stereotype depiction of the British in India and the myth of the British stiff upper lip, Dalrymple shows that the British did not merely conquer India, they were seduced by it (and Indian women). Despite its setting in the eighteenth century, this is a hugely important contemporary book. Dalrymple has broken new ground in the current debate about racism, colonialism and globalization. The history of the British in India will never be the same after this book. It is also beautifully written.”
—Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban and Jihad
“The cross-cultural romance between Khair un-Nissa and James Achilles Kirkpatrick—the gripping central narrative of this book—is an extraordinary tale. . . . Mr. Dalrymple first began exploring the mingling of East and West as a travel writer, and his sensitive memoir of a year in Delhi, City of Djinns, established him as Britain’s premier author on South Asia. In White Mughals he has pulled off a tour de force of scholarly research. Academics rarely let themselves get so close and the result is a veritable travelogue through the past, packed with detail and sense of place. The book breathes. You can almost smell the spiced meats in the Hyderabad biryanis or the flowering fruit trees Kirkpatrick planted in the Residency garden. Mr. Dalrymple researches like a historian, thinks like an anthropologist and writes like a novelist. It is a winning combnd writesination.”
—New York Sun
“Masterfully demonstrating that truth can trump fiction, English travel writer Dalrymple relates a wrenching tale of love’s labours lost on the Indian subcontinent. Dalrymple argues that the Brits ‘went native’ a lot more than is commonly thought and that West can meet East when love is the lingua franca. Rigorously researched, intelligent, compassionate. A tour de force.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Anyone who fails to read William Dalrymple’s White Mughals owing to a lack of interest in India will be losing a rich reward. By following the love story of a British Resident in Hyderabad and a Muslim noblewoman, he goes deep into the relationship of East and West in the late eighteenth century when the twain did most certainly meet. A devoted and—in this case—uncannily lucky researcher, Dalrymple offers a feast of often astonishing information and a cast of men and women ranging from the comic to the heartrending, but above all he writes in a way that draws you into his own enthusiasm for the subject. This is an irresistible book.”
—Guardian Books of the Year
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