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Nine Lives

In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

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Nine Lives

By: William Dalrymple
Narrated by: Mikhail Sen
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Bloomsbury presents Nine Lives by William Dalrymple, read by Mikhail Sen.

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.©2009 William Dalrymple (P)2024 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Hinduism Spirituality China
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Critic reviews

His most ambitious yet, taking the reader into lurid, scarcely imaginable worlds of mysticism . . . Dalrymple has an inimitable way of conjuring the Indian landscape
Beautifully written, ridiculously erudite, warm and open-hearted . . . A towering talent
A blend of travelogue, ethnography, oral history and reportage, Nine Lives is compelling and poignant
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 (Sadanand Dhume)
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 (Ruaridh Nicoll)
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 (Pankaj Mishra)
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 (Peter Kirkwood)
His characteristic wit and sympathy are fully evident in the interviews he has conducted . . . Beautifully illustrates the relationship between tradition and modernity in India
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 (Anthony Sattin)
A travel writer of huge talent, even genius
All stars
Most relevant
The initial story of the Jain female monk was very moving, but I liked the stories of the Sind Sufis and later the Baul sadhus best.

The variety of stories about the widely disparate lives and experiences of the people William spoke to.

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I liked the book on the whole. Some strange beliefs made me feel uncomfortable. Well read and performed

Extraordinary lifes

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This book has ignited in me a genuine interest in some of the more obscure spiritual practices. I love that we are taken on an exploration that is not tainted by prejudice and affords the readers a number of starting points for further delving to learn more about unusual rituals and lifestyles. It's an eye opener for sure.

Diversity

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