William Dalrymple

William Dalrymple is a Scottish historian, art historian, indologist, curator, broadcaster, and author known for his extensive work on South Asian history and the legacies of empire. Dalrymple was educated at Ampleforth and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a History Exhibitioner and later a Senior History Scholar. He began his literary career with the book "In Xanadu," which received the Yorkshire Post Best First Work Award and a Scottish Arts Council Spring Book Award, and was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. Dalrymple then moved to Delhi, where he spent five years researching "City of Djinns," which won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award and the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award.

Dalrymple's subsequent publications include "From the Holy Mountain," a study of Christianity in the Middle East, which was awarded the Scottish Arts Council Autumn Book Award and shortlisted for several other honors. "White Mughals" marked his transition from travel writing to historical analysis and won the Wolfson Prize for History and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award. "The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857" achieved bestseller status in both the United Kingdom and India. "The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company" explores the decline of the Mughal Empire and the rise of the British East India Company, earning recognition from international leaders and several major awards. Dalrymple is also the author of "The Company Quartet," a four-volume history of the East India Company.

In addition to his writing, Dalrymple has contributed to the fields of broadcasting and public discourse. He wrote and presented the television series "Stories of the Raj" and "Indian Journeys," which won the Grierson Award for Best Documentary Series at BAFTA. Dalrymple has received the Foreign Correspondent of the Year honor at the FPA Media Awards and holds five honorary doctorates. His work appears regularly in New Yorker, Guardian, TLS, and New York Review of Books. He is a co-host of the podcast "Empire."

Dalrymple has been recognized for his literary contributions and for co-founding the Jaipur Literature Festival, receiving the President's Medal from the British Academy. He was named among the world's top 50 thinkers by Prospect magazine. Dalrymple is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Asiatic Society, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and has held visiting fellowships at Princeton, Brown, and Oxford. His work continues to influence the study of empire, faith, and South Asian history.