Return of a King: William Dalrymple at AWRF 2013

"Return of a King" is the title of his book, of course, but it could also be a tagline for William Dalrymple at AWRF 2013, back after a star turn three years ago at AWRF 2010. Mt. Albert Library's Robin Whitworth, who was there then and now, found that custom did not stale his infinite variety of charm and erudition.

Speakers at the Festival possessed varying degrees of fluency in their delivery; sometimes my enjoyment of a session was marred by hesitancy, monotonous voice, etc. When William Dalrymple cast off his jacket and strolled out from behind the podium, in full possession of the stage, I knew I was in the presence of a natural performer. 

He delivered a rollicking and entertaining history lesson, displaying total mastery of his material. A history lesson which America and its allies have failed to heed in their current engagement in Afghanistan. In 1839 the British launched an offensive out of fear of an imminent Russian takeover, and installed a puppet ruler in Kabul. Through ghastly incompetence and hubris on the part of administrators, politicians and the military (not least of whom was ‘our’ Lord Auckland), who ignored all expert advice, the occupation ended after a mere eighteen months. A massive retreat resulted in the death of over 18,000 who either were slaughtered or froze to death in the wintry Khyber Pass. 

Dalrymple has made a name for himself as an expert on the history of India, with a number of titles such as The Last Mughal, City of Djinns, In Xanadu, Sacred India. He claims to be the only author who has risked sniper fire to research the Afghan sources for this, his latest work Return of a King: the battle for Afghanistan,1839-42. 

--  Robin Whitworth

AWRF 2010 - An evening with William Dalrymple

That friendly librarian helping you with the travel and history books at Central Library might be Jade, whose career includes an exciting 14 months as a VSA volunteer at the National Library of Cambodia. Ask her if she attended “An evening with William Dalrymple” at AWRF 2010 and then you’ll know, especially if she describes it to you like this: 

The audience waited with anticipation for the evening with William Dalrymple to begin, and after being formally introduced, he was quickly on stage, telling us he was going to read from four of his travel books, not from the latest one only, as I had expected.

 He began with his first travel book In Xanadu written when he was 22, which he called a “student romp” as he retraced, during his summer break, Marco Polo’s journey from Jerusalem to Shangdu (Xanadu). He read an excerpt from his humorous account of going to the cinema in China where he and the locals watched James Bond in Dr. No.

The City of Djinns was his second travel book and explored his fascination with Delhi, its history and wonderful array of eclectic inhabitants. Dalrymple recounted for us his adventure with taxi driver Ravinder Singh in the hazardous Delhi traffic where “might is right” and the “driver of the loudest vehicle” wins.

His third book, From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium, written in a more serious tone, examined the Christian minorities in the Middle East and the complexity of the relationship between Christianity and Islam which historically have co-existed closely, sharing holy places and religious practices.

Dalrymple’s final readings were from Nine Lives: In Search of the Modern in Sacred India, published in 2009. Not written in the style of more traditional travel writing, Nine Lives is what Dalrymple called “nine nonfiction short stories”, told by the nine people whose stories impressed him most as he travelled throughout India. Each of the individuals embraces a different religious or sacred tradition, and includes a Tibetan monk, a Sufi, Tantric sadhu, a sacred prostitute, and a Theyyam dancer. Dalrymple wanted to show how a variety of traditional faiths is surviving in contemporary, globalised modern India. He read a couple of excerpts from the first story about a Jain nun who became grief-stricken when her fellow nun and travelling companion of twenty years died through taking her own life according to the Jain tradition of Santhara, or fasting until death.

During question time, we learnt that Dalrymple, himself a Roman Catholic, believes that there are many paths up the mountain of religious faith. When asked what his Indian readers think about Nine Lives, he told us that while he had aimed it at a Western audience, it had touched the Indian readers more and that they were now his biggest reading audience. He reflected how his previous works were written more from an outsider’s point of view and I think his latest work shows a new maturity in travel writing that enables the people to speak for themselves.