An Evening with William Dalrymple
In Xanadu and Onwards
on
Wednesday, 9 March 2005
at
The Penthouse, Jardine House, One Connaught Place
Drinks Reception with Canapes 6.30 pm
Lecture 7.30 pm "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasuredome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea." We are delighted that the great travel writer and historian William Dalrymple has agreed to spend an informal evening with members and their guests at the Jardine Penthouse. Following the drinks reception, Mr. Dalrymple is going to read humourous selections from his popular travel books starting with 'In Xanadu', where he left his college in Cambridge to travel to the ruins of Kublai Khan's stately pleasure dome in Xanadu. This is an account of a quest which took him and his companions across with width of Asia, along dusty, forgotten roads, through villages and cities full of unexpected hospitality and wildly improbable escapades, to Xanadu itself. Mr. Dalrymple is also going to read from his other travel books 'City of Djinns', 'From the Holy Mountain' and other travel writings. The readings are going to be interspersed by anecdotes and stories of how the books came to be written. William Dalrymple was born in Scotland. He wrote the highly acclaimed bestseller 'In Xanadu' when he was twentytwo, which won several awards. In 1989, Mr. Dalrymple moved to Delhi where he lived for six years researching his second book, 'City of Djinns', which won the 1994 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award and the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award. His next book was 'From the Holy Mountain', his acclaimed study of the demise of Christianity in its Middle Eastern homeland, which was followed by a collection of his writings about India, 'The Age of Kali', in 1998. William Dalrymple is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Asiatic Society, and in 2002 was awarded the Mungo Park Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society for his 'outstanding contribution to travel literature'. He wrote and presented the television series 'Stones of the Raj and Indian Journeys', which won the Grierson Award for Best Documentary Series at BAFTA in 2002 and he has had several successful radio series. Members and their guests are most welcome to attend this lecture, which is $100 for Members, $150 for guests and HK$200 for others. This includes complimentary drinks with snacks and canapes at the Reception prior to the lecture.