Sam Miller’s Delhi: ‘India’s Dreamtown & Purgatory’

Although I was born and brought up in Delhi, India’s capital city, I now find it a challenge to live there for more than a fortnight at a stretch. Sam Miller, a former BBC journalist who has made Delhi his home since 2002, quite succinctly describes the city as ‘India’s dreamtown — and its purgatory.’

Sam Miller’s recent book Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity vividly captures the fascinating past, the generally unexplored sites, the smelly underbelly, and the strange magnetic pull of this historic city that rose and fell several times in its over 2,000 years of recorded history.

The book has received impressive reviews from those who know Delhi well, including celebrated writers like Khushwant Singh, Mark Tully and William Dalrymple. (For reviews please click here…)

I attended the book’s first launch at the historic Lodhi Gardens in Delhi. The Mumbai (Bombay) launch for Sam Miller’s book is scheduled later this month at the British Council in Nariman Point. The book has done well since its release and headed the non-fiction best-seller list for several weeks.

The UK publication (by Jonathan Cape) will be in June (and can be pre-ordered in the UK at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Delhi-Sam-Miller/dp/0224086103) The actual launch in London will be at the Nehru Centre on July 16th.

Sam Miller was born in London in 1962. In the early 1990s he was BBC correspondent in Delhi. He returned to Delhi in 2002 and has lived there ever since, running media projects for the BBC World Service Trust. Here’s the Indian Express story on him…