Patrick French – författare

Patrick French's India: A Portrait tells the story of how India emerged from a turbulent struggle for independence to become a vibrant democracy with one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. India is the biggest democracy on earth, a country of dynamic change, huge divisions and countless identities. Is there any way to discover the 'real' India? In this intimate biography of 1.2 billion people, Patrick French travels all over the country talking to everyone from political leaders to mafia dons, from chained quarry workers to self-made billionaire entrepreneurs, to tell the story of post-independence India as never before. 'Patrick French brings one of the globe's most dynamic nations springing to life ... he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the country, sensitivity to its subtler nuances and a wealth of research'Sunday Times'It's gripping ... If you're Indian, reading the book is like learning the history of your country in four days'New Indian Express'Fizzing with wit, insight and infectious curiosity ... a thoroughly enjoyable romp through six momentous decades'Wall Street Journal Asia'Wide-ranging, clear-sighted, warm-hearted and immensely readable ... The human tales that French finds are engrossing'Evening Standard'A rich colouring of contemporary characters and events, many of them sharply observed at first hand. Crammed with elegant portraits'EconomistPatrick French is the author of Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer, which won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Royal Society of Literature W. H. Heinemann Prize, Liberty or Death: India's Journey to Independence and Division, which won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land, The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul, which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Hawthornden Prize, and India: A Portrait.

One of this century's greatest surprises has been the economic and social revolution in India. A country long characterized by such adjectives as 'timeless', 'spiritual' and 'backward' is now viewed through a new set of clichés: 'hi-tech', 'materialistic', 'go-getting'. But what is the real nature of this rapid change, and what are its roots?Patrick French has spent much of his life engaged with India, and his landmark new book is filled with the qualities that have won his writing exceptional praise: his love of narrative, sympathy for the individual's experience, scepticism about official claims, and relish for the mayhem of political life. His account of Indian independence, Liberty or Death, is an acclaimed bestseller. Now he gives us an encompassing social, political and economic history of India from partition to the present day.Examining the cultural foundations that made India's accelerated transformation from socialist economy to capitalist powerhouse possible, French creates a vivid, surprising picture of what it is like to live at a time when millions have pulled themselves free of poverty - with fortunes made almost overnight - but where violence, corruption and caste prejudice have equally been given new outlets. He delves into Indian society and politics, including the personal story of one of the most powerful women in the world, Sonia Gandhi. And he travels the country's regions to show how Nehru's vision of a democratic, secular India has continued to attempt - in the face of conflict and setbacks - to hold this vast, implacably diverse nation together.French has spoken to everyone from the nation's political leadership to Maoist revolutionaries and mafia dons, from chained quarry workers to self-made billionaire entrepreneurs and technological innovators. The result is a richly detailed, wide-ranging and hugely rewarding portrait of India.

Tibet has long fascinated the West, but what really lies beyond our romantic image of a mystical mountain kingdom of peace and spirituality? Patrick French set out to discover the truth, and his extraordinary account has been widely acclaimed.Travelling through the country, French meets exiled monks, nomads and a nun secretly fighting Chinese rule, but also young Tibetans with a more pragmatic attitude to their situation. Interweaving these encounters with little-known stories of war and turmoil from Tibet's past, he reveals a more nuanced, fascinating and surprising picture of this complex place than any other book has done.

Soldier, explorer, mystic, guru and spy, Francis Younghusband began his colonial career as a military adventurer and became a radical visionary who preached free love to his followers. Patrick French's award-winning biography traces the unpredictable life of the maverick with the 'damned rum name', who singlehandedly led the 1904 British invasion of Tibet, discovered a new route from China to India, organized the first expeditions up Mount Everest and attempted to start a new world religion. Following in Younghusband's footsteps, from Calcutta to the snows of the Himalayas, French pieces together the story of a man who embodies all the romance and folly of Britain's lost imperial dream.

From the author of India: A Portrait, Patrick French's Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land has been acclaimed as the book that showed the real Tibet for the first time.Tibet has long fascinated the West, but what really lies beyond our romantic image of a Buddhist mountain kingdom of peace and spirituality?Travelling through the country, French meets warrior monks, nomads and a nun secretly fighting Chinese communist rule, but also young Tibetans with a more pragmatic attitude to their situation. Interweaving these encounters with little-known stories of war and turmoil from Tibet's past, he reveals a more nuanced, fascinating and surprising picture of this complex place than any other book has done. 'Mixes a compelling subject, magnificent prose and deep understanding' The Times'Inspired and heartfelt ... shows that Tibet was never the peace-loving paradise so many generations of well-wishers have longed for it to be' Pico Iyer, Los Angeles Times'Tibet, Tibet, so good they named it twice ... French is a writer of generous talents'Sunday Times'French has produced something very different from what he calls "Tibetophile" literature, something greatly superior in its honesty and lack of false sentiment'Spectator'A gripping mix of history, travel writing and personal memoir ... vividly told' ObserverPatrick French is the author of Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer, which won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Royal Society of Literature W. H. Heinemann Prize, Liberty or Death: India's Journey to Independence and Division, which won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land and, most recently, The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul, which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Hawthornden Prize.

Liberty or Death is Patrick French's vivid and surprising account of the chaotic final years of colonial rule in India, acclaimed as the definitive book on this subject.At midnight on 14 August 1947, Great Britain's 350-year-old Indian Empire was broken into three pieces. The greatest mass migration in history began, as Muslims fled north and Hindus fled south, and Britain's role as an imperial power came to an end.Journeying across India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, Patrick French brings to life a cast of characters including spies, idealists, freedom fighters and politicians from Winston Churchill to Mahatma Gandhi. The result is a compelling story of deal-making, missed opportunities, hope and tragedy.'A fine, lucid book ... vividly drawn with novel-like touches' Hanif Kureshi'Extraordinarily able and nuanced ... a brilliant book on an important subject ... French is the most impressive Western historian of modern India currently at work' Herald'Beautifully written' Sunday Times 'French is a natural storyteller ... a delightful tale of intrigue, ham-handedness and just plain blundering' India TodayPatrick French is the author of India: A Portrait, Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer, which won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Royal Society of Literature W. H. Heinemann Prize, Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land, The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul, which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Hawthornden Prize.

At midnight on 14 August 1947, Britain's 350-year-old Indian Empire was broken into three pieces. The greatest mass migration in history began, as Muslims fled north and Hindus fled south, and Britain's role as an imperial power came to an end. Patrick French's vivid and surprising account of the chaotic final years of colonial rule in India has been acclaimed as the definitive book on this subject. Journeying across India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, he brings to life a cast of characters including spies, idealists, freedom fighters and politicians from Churchill to Gandhi.

The first major biography of V.S. Naipaul, the controversial and enigmatic Nobel laureate: a stunning writer whose only stated ambition was greatness, in pursuit of which goal nothing else was sacred. Beginning in rich detail in Trinidad, where Naipaul was born into an Indian family, Patrick French skillfully examines Naipaul’s life within a displaced community and his fierce ambition at school. He describes how, on scholarship at Oxford, homesickness and depression struck with great force; the ways in which Naipaul’s first wife helped him to cope and their otherwise fraught marriage; and Naipaul’s struggles throughout subsequent uncertainties in England, including his twenty-five-year-long affair.Naipaul’s extraordinary gift—producing, uniquely, masterpieces of both fiction and nonfiction—is most of all born of a forceful, visionary impulse, whose roots French traces with a sympathetic brilliance and devastating insight.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Shortlisted for the 2008 BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction

This is the first major biography of V.S. Naipaul, Nobel Prize winner and one of the most compelling literary figures of the last fifty years.With great feeling for his formidable body of work, and exclusive access to his private papers and personal recollections, Patrick French has produced a lucid and astonishing account of this enigmatic genius: one which looks sensitively and unflinchingly at his relationships, his development as a writer and as a man, his outspokenness, his peerless creativity, and his extraordinary and enduring position both outside and at the very centre of literary culture.‘Its clarity, honesty, even-handedness, its panoramic range and close emotional focus, above all its virtually unprecedented access to the dark secret life at its heart, make it one of the most gripping biographies I’ve ever read’ Hilary Spurling, Observer ‘A brilliant biography: exemplary in its thoroughness, sympathetic but tough in tone . . . Reading it I was enthralled – and frequently amused (how incredibly funny Naipaul can be!)’ Spectator‘A masterly performance . . . If a better biography is published this year, I shall be astonished’ Allan Massie, Literary Review‘Remarkable. This biography will change the way we read Naipaul’s books’ Craig Brown, Book of the Week, Mail on Sunday

The work of the French literary review, intellectual grouping and publishing team Tel Quel had a profound impact on the formation of literary and cultural debate in the 1960s and 70s. Its legacy has had enormous influence on the parameters of such debate today. From its beginning in 1960 to its closure in 1982, it published some of the earliest work of Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes. It was also associated with some of the key ideas of the French avant-garde, publishing key articles by Georges Bataille and Antonin Artaud.The Tel Quel Reader presents for the first time in English the key essays written by the Tel Quel group. Essays by Julia Kristeva, one of the review's editor's Michel Foucault, and a fascinating interview with Roland Barthes are here made available for the first time in English. It provides a unique insight into the post-structuralist movement and presents some of the pioneering essays on literature and culture, film, semiotics and psychoanalysis.Assembling key essays from over a twenty-year period, The Tel Quel Reader is an indispensible resource for students of literature, cultural and visual studies, philosophy and French studies.