Nine Lives

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

A fascinating text . . . It is an index of Dalrymple’s ability as a writer and his complex immersion in Indian cultures that he deftly avoids any hint of “Orientalism” . . . Dalrymple succeeds in juxtaposing the sacred and the secular without diverting the captivating flow of his prose. This is a rich book, teeming with fascinating characters and places worth visiting; it is a travel book that takes the reader not only across the wide expanse of the Indian subcontinent but also into intriguing aspects of India’s past and present

Tabish Khair

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