Freedom At Midnight

Inspiration for the major film starring Hugh Bonneville, Gillian Anderson, Manish Dayal and Huma Qureshi and directed by Gurinder Chadha.

Seventy years ago, at midnight on 14 August 1947, the Union Jack began its final journey down the flagstaff of Viceroy’s House, New Delhi. A fifth of humanity claimed their independence from the greatest empire history has ever seen – but the price of freedom was high, as a nation erupted into riots and bloodshed, partition and war.

This is an electrifying and acclaimed account of the dying days of the British Raj and the drama played out between Lord Mountbatten, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah, as an empire undertook a violent transformation into the new India and Pakistan.

“'Thrilling... staggers the imagination' Daily Mail 'A vast and complex canvas... rich in vivid details' Sunday Times 'The song of India... illuminated in scenes like a pageant' Time”

‘Thrilling… staggers the imagination’ Daily Mail

‘A vast and complex canvas… rich in vivid details’ Sunday Times

‘The song of India… illuminated in scenes like a pageant’ Time

Larry Collins was born in West Hartford, Connecticut. After graduating from the Loomis School and Yale University, he served in the US Army at SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers, Europe) outside Paris, where he met Dominique Lapierre, with whom his name is associated in five major international bestsellers.Collins later became a journalist with United Press International in Paris, Rome and the Middle East, where he joined Newsweek as its Middle East correspondent in 1958. During the course of two turbulent years, he covered ten coup d’etats or violent upheavals in his area and was described in national advertising by his employers as “the correspondent who always managed to be in a country just as a revolution or coup d’etat was about to break out – including one in the Dominican Republic when he was supposed to be on vacation.”In April 1961, he returned to Paris as the Newsweek Bureau Chief. During his Newsweek years, his cover story subjects included the Shah of Iran, Charles DeGaulle, Fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and the death of Pope John XXIII.In the summer of 1962, Larry teamed up with Dominique Lapierre on the first of their internationally known bestsellers – Is Paris Burning?, which was followed by four others, all fantastically successful. Larry has subsequently written three others bestsellers, equally as successful, and his most current, Tomorrow Belongs To Us is published in March.Larry Collins is an avid skier and tennis player. He and his wife have two grown up sons and divide their time between properties in London, France and the US.

Inspiration for the major film starring Hugh Bonneville, Gillian Anderson, Manish Dayal and Huma Qureshi and directed by Gurinder Chadha. Seventy years ago, at midnight on 14 August 1947, the Union Jack began its final journey down the flagstaff of Viceroy's House, New Delhi. A fifth of humanity claimed their independence from the greatest empire history has ever seen - but the price of freedom was high, as a nation erupted into riots and bloodshed, partition and war. This is an electrifying and acclaimed account of the dying days of the British Raj and the drama played out between Lord Mountbatten, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah, as an empire undertook a violent transformation into the new India and Pakistan.

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