William Dalrymple's first book, In Xanadu, won the Yorkshire Post Best First Work Award and the Scottish Arts Council Spring Book Award, and was shortlisted for the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize. His second, City of Djinns, won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award and the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award. His third, From the Holy Mountain, was published in April 1997. He is the youngest Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has recently written and presented a six-part series on the buildings of the Raj for Channel 4.
The author of the award-winning City of Djinns returns to India in this series of essays. Dalrymple delves deep into local affairs in India, revealing the growing functional problems of a country made up of a patchwork of extreme beliefs, caste and levels of modernity/antiquity. Illustrating individual battles, characters and moments, he powerfully evokes the life and land of this fascinating country. (Kirkus UK)