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William Dalrymple
William Dalrymple is the bestselling author of In Xanadu, City of Djinns, From the Holy Mountain, Age of Kali, White Mughals, The Last Mughal, Nine Lives, Return of a King and Kohinoor. He has won many awards, including the Wolfson Prize for History, the Hemingway, the Kapuscinski, the Thomas Cook, the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize, and has, prior to the shortlisting of Return of a King, been longlisted four times for the Samuel Johnson /Baillie Gifford Prize. He has also been awarded the prestigious President's Medal by the British Academy. His new books are The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company and Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company. Dalrymple is one of the founders and a co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival.
Sessions
The Extraordinary Epoch of Nanasaheb Peshwa
Uday Kulkarni in conversation with William Dalrymple
The mid-eighteenth century marks a pivotal turning point in Indian as well as world history. Historian and writer Uday Kulkarni’s latest The Extraordinary Epoch of Nanasaheb Peshwa charts the power struggle which led to the Marathas becoming a paramount power in India during this period. In a conversation with historian William Dalrymple, Kulkarni explores the events of the time and the power wielded by Nana Saheb Peshwa.
China and the World
Rana Mitter in conversation with William Dalrymple
For 70 years, India has tended to look at Pakistan as its main strategic rival and potential enemy but recent events in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and on the Line of Control in Ladakh have given many pause for thought. China has a larger population and economy than India and a more modern array of weaponry equipping its army. Should India be worried? Have our strategic thinkers been looking in the wrong direction? Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at Oxford University, Rana Mitter, British Indian China-watcher and author of new book 'China’s Good War', cuts through the mythology and separates truth from fiction in conversation with William Dalrymple.
How Can the Sacred be Sensuous?
Vidya Dehejia in conversation with William Dalrymple
In the art of the Islam and Christianity, the sensuous is often seen to be opposed to the sacred but this is certainly not the case in Hindu art. Vidya Dehejia, one of India’s most engaging and distinguished art historians, who has written extensively on the body, love and sensuality in Indian art addresses the issue, in conversation with William Dalrymple
ON CHAPEL SANDS: MY MOTHER AND OTHER MISSING PERSONS
Laura Cummings in conversation with William Dalrymple
Laura Cumming's book On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons was one of the big nonfiction hits of last year, and was shortlisted for a swathe of major prizes. Here, she discusses unearthing family secrets with fellow author Raghu Karnad.
How Indian Mathematics transformed the world:
Jim Al-Khalili in conversation with William Dalrymple
Ancient Indian mathematics and astronomy were well ahead of their time as Aryabhata and Brahmagupta pioneered the decimal and numeric system we use today. Here, theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster, Jim al- Khalili talks to William Dalrymple about their discoveries and how that reached the rest of the world via Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi in Abbasid Baghdad and Fibonacci in Renaissance Florence.
Erebus:
Michael Palin in conversation with William Dalrymple
In conversation with William Dalrymple, former Monty Python stalwart and beloved television globe-trotter Michael Palin brings the fascinating story of HMS Erebus and its occupants to life, from its construction as a bomb vessel in 1826 through the flagship years of James Clark Ross’s Antarctic expedition and finally to Sir John Franklin’s quest for the holy grail of navigation—a route through the Northwest Passage, where the ship disappeared for more than 150 years to be rediscovered under the Arctic waters in 2014.
Underland: A Deep Time Journey
Robert Macfarlane in conversation with William Dalrymple
In his first book, Mountains of the Mind, award-winning travel writer Robert Macfarlane wrote about the fear and fascination generated in the human heart by height. In his latest masterpiece, Underland he explores the deepest depths of the Earth in conversation with William Dalrymple: “I have rarely felt as far from the human realm,” Macfarlane writes, “as when only 10 metres below it, held in the shining jaws of a limestone bedding plane first formed on the floor of a warm Cretaceous sea.”