City Of Djinns

Winner of the 1994 Thomas Cook Travel book Award and Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year -Dalrymple is probably the best travel writer of his generation'” Daily Mail -As the author of the best travel book of recent years at the intensely irritating age of twenty-two, William Dalrymple has now shown that In Xanadu was no fluke. City of Djinns is an entertaining mix of history and diary informed by a deep curiousity about the ways in which the ghosts of even the most distant past still walk in the twentieth century.'” Christopher Lockwood, Daily Telegraph -Dalrymple has pulled it off again – At a time when the book of travels is beginning to lose its fashionable allure, City of Djinns is not really a travel book at all. It is a kind of memoir recording the response of a single, gentle, merry and learned mind to the presence of an ancient city … Dalrymple is anything but avoyeur. Even his excursions into the world o the eunuchs are conducted with a kind of grave innocence. He is more a pilgrim than an observer, always trying to understand – It is the work of a man who has consciously chosen to commit himself to the profession of letters, and in it we see the first fine rapture of In Xanadu deepening to a profounder dedication – hours and hours of pleasure for his readers.'” Jan Morris, Independent -One one level there are the amusing rites of passage, the struggles with bureaucracy, the eccentricity of Dalrymple’s landlord, all entertainingly related. Dalrymple has a way of letting you smell and feel the city. There are beautifully chiselled descriptions of a grand capital – but much of the book’s strength lies in Dalrymple’s skill in peeling the historical onion and showing how (the) New Delhi resonates with the old – A splendid tapestry.'” Trevor Fishlock, Sunday Telegraph -A sympathetic and engaging portrait of this age-old city'” Nicholas Wordsworth, Financial Times -Scholalry and marvellously entertaining – A considerable feat.'” Dervia Murphy, Spectator -Unlike much of modern travel writing [City of Djinns] is informative, learned and funny – a lively and sometimes profound book.'” Emma duncan, Economist -An expansive and inclusive work, richly peopled – an enlightening and entertaining book.'” Iain Wetherby, Literary Review.