William Dalrymple lauds NRI writing

Each of his books have been bestsellers. Despite that, William Dalrymple doesn’t like people calling him a successful
‘novelist’. He’d rather people call him a ‘non-fiction writer’.

Dalrymple first came to India as a young traveler in 1984 and was fascinated by the sights and sounds of the country. Since then he has made India his home. His latest book Nine Lives, which released late last year, has been another bestseller. Within the first two weeks of its release 35,000 copies were sold in India, the fastest in this country. “For the first time ever I sold faster in India than Britain, which is very nice. If I write about India and Indians don’t recognise that, there’s a problem. It feels wonderful that now I am making a good living as a writer, writing about
India. There is a big market for books about India.”

However, Dalrymple also feels that there is a dearth of quality travel writing emerging out of India. “Much of the best of Indian writing is happening by NRIs. If I name the top five travel books written by Indian authors, almost all of them reside outside India. Examples being Suketu Mehta, VS Naipul, Amitav Ghosh, Pankaj Mishra and Vikram Seth,” he says.

Dalrymple thinks the reason this is happening is because most NRIs “notice things in India that most people residing within the country don’t notice.” He says, “Being an insider-outsider makes travel writing work. I don’t notice the red buses in London because they are part of my everyday life; I grew up with them. I see other things. I see the new Bengali shops at the end of the road.”

Dalrymple also has words of praise for some widely-read authors writing about India. He says, “Jhumpa Lahiri is doing fantastic work. She is a spectacular writer. The lovely thing she’s doing is exploring this tiny little world of Bengali immigrants. She is proof that Indian immigrants’ novels or short stories have life in it. In the last 10 years, a lot more interesting stuff is coming out of India, particularly non-fiction like Namita Devidayal’s

Music Room. Though Arvind Adiga’s White Tiger was mauled to bits here, it was a good novel. He was unfairly treated by the press,” he says.

Currently Dalrymple is exploring subjects like Aurangzeb, Clive, the spread of Christianity in India and St Thomas. “If I didn’t have a family then maybe I would have spent the rest of my time in Kerala, researching about St Thomas,” he ends.