City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi
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THE A5 BOOK REVIEWWilliam Dalrymple’s second book, following the highly acclaimed In Xanadu, details the six years he spent living in Delhi, a city he calls “a bottomless seam of stories”. He and his wife meet an amazing cast of characters who embody Delhi, including entrepreneurial taxi drivers and customs officials, Sufi mystics, Moslem healers, whirling dervishes, eunuch dancers (really), and their eccentric Sikh landlords. His curiosity for and love of Delhi is obvious, and he spends a lot of time researching and sharing the city’s turbulent history. The title refers to the legend of the djinns, spirits that are said to reassure that the city will regenerate no matter how many times it is destroyed. Dalrymple is one of our favorite travel writers, and the book is entertaining, informative and a pleasure to read. City of Djinns was the winner of the 1994 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.
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OTHER A5 RECOMMENDED TRAVEL BOOKS - WILLIAM DALRYMPLEWilliam Dalrymple is an accomplished writer, famous both for his travel books on trips through Asia and the Middle East, and later in his career for his writing on history. He wrote the highly acclaimed In Xanadu at 22 years old. He is a regular contributor to numerous magazines, a prominent broadcaster on TV and radio, and a co-founder of the Jaipur Literary Festival, We recommend several of his books.
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GREAT QUOTES:"But it was not until months later, when I met Pir Sadr-ud-Din, that I learned the secret that kept the city returning to new life. Delhi, said Pir Sadr-ud-Din, was a city of djinns. Though it had been burned by invaders time and time again, millennium after millennium, still the city was rebuilt; each time it rose like a phoenix from the fire. Just as the Hindus believe that a body will be reincarnated over and over again until it becomes perfect, so it seemed Delhi was destined to appear in a new incarnation century after century."
- William Dalrymple, City of Djinns "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..." - Jan Morris INTERESTING LINKS:
A MAP OF DELHI |
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