Award-winning, critically acclaimed, internationally bestselling William Dalrymple takes us to the heart of an undiscovered India

LONGLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE ‘Beautifully written, ridiculously erudite, warm and open-hearted’ The Times ‘Compelling and poignant’ Guardian ‘This is travel writing at its best’ Observer Internationally bestselling William Dalrymple takes us to the heart of an undiscovered India. A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet - then spends the rest of his life trying to atone for the violence by hand printing the best prayer flags in India. A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her best friend ritually starve herself to death. Nine people, nine lives; each one taking a different religious path, each one an unforgettable story. William Dalrymple delves deep into the heart of a nation torn between the relentless onslaught of modernity and the ancient traditions that endure to this day.

"His most ambitious yet, taking the reader into lurid, scarcely imaginable worlds of mysticism . . . Dalrymple has an inimitable way of conjuring the Indian landscape" - Financial Times

"Beautifully written, ridiculously erudite, warm and open-hearted . . . A towering talent" - The Times

"A blend of travelogue, ethnography, oral history and reportage, Nine Lives is compelling and poignant" - Guardian

"The reader gets the sense that the author is driven by an unquenchable curiosity about a country he loves. Dalrymple never mocks his subjects. Indeed, his prose is often tinged with tenderness and a sense of longing. In dashes of brilliance, Dalrymple’s work reveals an India still rich in religious experience, its spiritual quest – or rather, quests – still very much part of the warp and weft of daily life. Amid all the excitement about economic growth, an older India endures" - Wall Street Journal

"At its best travel writing beats fiction, firing the imagination with tales of foreign peoples drawn close by our common humanity . . . This is travel writing at its best. I hope it sparks a revival" - Observer

"Nine Lives remains oddly gripping, and often very moving, in its first-person accounts of spiritually-minded people that Dalrymple meets on his travels across the subcontinent" - The National

"For those who enjoyed Dalrymple’s earlier travel adventures, this latest book is written with the same verve and sense of immediacy . . . In a deft way he shows how the tensions, dilemmas and changes in the lives of these individuals illustrate the vast transformation of Indian society . . . Vibrant and engaging, Dalrymple paints a compelling portrait of this complex sprawling giant of a country at a time of momentous change" - The Australian

"His characteristic wit and sympathy are fully evident in the interviews he has conducted . . . Beautifully illustrates the relationship between tradition and modernity in India" - Spectator

"Dalrymple’s storytelling skills and eye for the bizarre make this a fascinating and entertaining window onto spiritual India" - Sunday Times, Books of the Year

"A travel writer of huge talent, even genius" - Outlook

"A fast-paced book, moving from the perspective of a Jain nun contemplating the slow and voluntary relinquishing of her life, to the dilemma of the Dalit theyyam who shuttles between his job as a prison warden to his life as a man in the grip of religious ecstasy. These are compelling contemporary stories, and Dalrymple seems to be channelling a modern-day avatar of Kipling" - Business Standard

"In Nine Lives the author is on the road again, but deliberately takes a back seat, allowing his characters to tell their own spellbinding stories. Dalrymple’s exhaustive research and deep feeling for Indian culture and ancient faiths mean he writes with clarity, erudition and engagement. With his guidance and context, each story reads like a rare insight into a multifarious and often impenetrable culture. Nine Lives is India at its most pure but also its most fragile. Dalrymple’s stories always strive for a higher purpose than simply recounting adventures in the manner of so much contemporary travel writing. In Nine Lives, that purpose is to record and conserve these unique, fantastical histories, before they disappear forever" - Sydney Morning Herald

"Dalrymple is widely read and admired, and Nine Lives is both moving and radiant: an austere, piercing, and exciting book on nine astonishing religious lives" - The Hindu