Nine Lives: Encounters with the Holy in Modern India: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India - Hardcover

William Dalrymple

4.06

7,988 ratings by Goodreads

9781408800614: Nine Lives: Encounters with the Holy in Modern India: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1408800616 ISBN 13: 9781408800614

Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2009

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Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

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Review:

`William Dalrymple's Nine Lives takes the charm and natural verve of City of Djinns, marries it to the intellectual and spiritual engagement of From the Holy Mountain, and brings it off with all the narrative skill developed in his history books, combined with his ever more profound understanding of India.'
--Maya Jasanoff

"Any of these stories could make a great film or play, they are so full of passion, tragedy, violence, compassion, and religious fervor, and so vividly evoked; . . . Their human concerns, not unlike ours, melt seamlessly into the bizarre, almost unimaginable circumstances of their ritual life, and eventually we see that that,too, is quite human, that there is nothing weird at all about drinking
warm blood or pulling out your hair by the roots. Only a brilliant writer like Dalrymple could bring off this astonishing and unprecedented revelation of the humanity of people on the farthest extremes of religious ecstasy" --Wendy Doniger

"I was enchanted by these poignant and magical stories. By artfully weaving together travel, history, and legend--all without guile--he creates a compelling narrative, reminding us why India is one of the world's greatest story telling cultures, and why he is one of its greatest story tellers" --Gurcharan das

"Any book by William Dalrymple is good news, but a travel book after close to a decade calls for a dash to the bookshop instead of a click on Amazon. Nine Lives, Dalrymple's first travel book after two exhilarating expeditions into Indian history, is a risky enterprise.
It is difficult for anyone, let alone "Westerners", to write about Indian religious traditions without slithering into Orientalist, New Ageist or Hindutva tropes. It is even more risky to narrate Indian religious beliefs against the template of today's India, which is itself a half-mythical being in the throes of constant change. But Dalrymple has managed to do so, and with aplomb." --Tabish Khair, Hindustan Times

'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

`This is travel writing at its best. I hope it sparks a revival' -- Observer

`Beautifully written, ridiculously erudite and, more than any of his previous work, reveals Dalrymple to be remarkably warm - and open-hearted ... a towering talent' -- The Times

`William Dalrymple's Nine Lives takes the charm and natural verve of City of Djinns, marries it to the intellectual and spiritual engagement of From the Holy Mountain, and brings it off with all the narrative skill developed in his history books, combined with his ever more profound understanding of India.' --Maya Jasanoff

'Full of passion, tragedy, violence, compassion, and religious fervor, and so vividly evoked...
Only a brilliant writer like Dalrymple could bring off this astonishing and unprecedented revelation of the humanity of people on the farthest extremes of religious ecstasy.' --Wendy Doniger

`I was enchanted by these poignant and magical stories. By artfully weaving together travel, history, and legend--all without guile--he creates a compelling narrative, reminding us why India is one of the world's greatest story telling cultures, and why he is one of its greatest story tellers.' --Gurcharan Das

Book Description:

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

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