From the Holy Mountain

The third book from the most gifted young travel writer at work today, author of the best-selling In Xanadu (‘one of the best travel books produced in the last twenty years’ – Scotland on Sunday) and City of Djinns (‘the best travel book I have ever read’ – George Mackay Brown).
In the spring of 587 AD, two monks set off on an extraordinary journey that would take them in an arc across the entire Byzantine world, from the shores of the Bosphorus to the sand dunes of Egypt. On the way John Moschos and his pupil Sophronius the Sophist stayed in caves, monasteries and remote hermitages, collecting the wisdom of the stylites and the desert fathers before their world shattered under the great eruption of Islam. More than a thousand years later, using Moschos’s writings as his guide, William Dalrymple set off to retrace their footsteps.
Despite centuries of isolation, a surprising number of the monasteries and churches visited by the two monks still survive today, surrounded by often hostile populations. Dalrymple’s pilgrimage took him through a bloody civil war in eastern Turkey, the ruins of Beirut, the vicious tensions of the West Bank and a fundamentalist uprising in southern Egypt. His book is an elegy to the slowly dying civilisation of Eastern Christianity and the peoples that have kept its flame alive. It is a rich and gripping blend of history and spirituality, adventure and politics, laced with a thread of black comedy familiar to readers of Dalrymple’s previous work.

Short-listed for Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award 1998
Short-listed for Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 1998
Short-listed for Mail on Sunday / John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 1997

“'Compulsively readable.' John Julius Norwich, Observer 'Everything a really good travel book should be: witty, learned and also very funny.' Eric Newby 'Any travel writer who is so good at his job as to be brilliant, applauded, loved and needed has to have an unusual list of qualities, and William Dalrymple has them all in aces. Dalrymple's ear for conversation is as good as Alan Bennett's. The best and most unexpected book I have read since I forget when.' Peter Levi 'A rich stew of history and travel narrative spiced with anecdote, opinion and bon mots…The future of travel literature lies in the hands of gifted authors like Dalrymple who shine their torches into the shadowy hinterland of the human story the most foreign territory of all.' Independent 'Dalrymple stands out as one of our most talented travel writers. Energetic, thoughtful, curious and courageous.' Sunday Times 'William Dalrymple has effortlessly assumed the mantle of Robert Byron and Patrick Leigh Fermor.' Guardian 'A splendid, effective and impressive book.' Financial Times”

'Compulsively readable' John Julius Norwich, Observer; 'Everything a really good travel book should be: witty, learned and also very funny' Eric Newby

William Dalrymple was born in Scotland and brought up on the shores of the Firth of Forth. He wrote the highly acclaimed bestseller In Xanadu when he was twenty-two. The book won the 1990 Yorkshire Post Best First Work Award and a Scottish Arts Council Spring Book Award; it was also shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. In 1989 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. From the Holy Mountain, his acclaimed study of the demise of Christianity in its Middle Eastern homeland, was awarded the Scottish Arts Council Autumn Book Award for 1997; it was also shortlisted for the 1998 Thomas Cook Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize. A collection of his writings about India, The Age of Kali, was published 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. He is married to the artist Olivia Fraser, and they have three children. They now divide their time between London and Delhi.

"Any travel writer who is so good at his job as to be brilliant, applauded, loved and needed has to have an unusual list of qualities, and William Dalrymple has them all in aces. Dalrymple's ear for conversation is as good as Alan Bennett's. The best and most unexpected book I have read since I forget when." PETER LEVI "Nobody but William Dalrymple - and possibly Patrick Leigh Fermor - could have produced so compulsively readable a book." JOHN JULIUS NORWICH, 'Observer' "A rich stew of history and travel narrative spiced with anecdote, opinion and 'bon mots' ... The future of travel literature lies in the hands of gifted authors like Dalrymple who shine their torches into the shadowy hinterland of the human story - the most foreign territory of all." SARA WHEELER, 'Independent' "Compelling reading ... Dalrymple's eye for the revealing moment is as acute as ever. 'From the Holy Mountain' is rare indeed: a book that will endure." EDWARD MARRIOTT, 'The Times' "Dalrymple stands out as one of our most talented travel writers. Energetic, thoughtful, curious and courageous." ANTHONY SATTIN, 'Sunday Times' "Dalrymple's threnody for Eastern Christianity ranks with the great modern travel books, Robert Byron's 'Road to Oxiana', Patrick Leigh Fermor's 'Time of Gifts' and Eric Newby's 'Short Walk in the Hindu Kush'. ALAN TAYLOR, 'Scotsman'

A rich blend of history and spirituality, adventure and politics, laced with the thread of black comedy familiar to readers of William Dalrymple's previous work. In AD 587, two monks, John Moschos and Sophronius the Sophist, embarked on an extraordinary journey across the Byzantine world, from the shores of the Bosphorus to the sand dunes of Egypt. Their aim: to collect the wisdom of the sages and mystics of the Byzantine East before their fragile world shattered under the eruption of Islam. Almost 1500 years later, using the writings of John Moschos as his guide, William Dalrymple set off to retrace their footsteps. Taking in a civil war in Turkey, the ruins of Beirut, the tensions of the West Bank and a fundamentalist uprising in Egypt, William Dalrymple's account is a stirring elegy to the dying civilisation of Eastern Christianity.

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