In search of Amrit Kaur

£12.99

2007. Italian writer Livia Manera Sambuy encounters a photo of Princess Amrit Kaur in a Mumbai museum. The picture is gorgeous, arresting, – but the caption will change Livia’s life forever. It claims that the Punjabi princess sold her jewels in occupied Paris to save Jewish lives, only to be arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp where she died within a year. It’s a sensational story – and for Livia, the beginning of a compulsive search for the truth as she delves into the history of the British Raj, the diamonds and sapphires of the 20th-century aristocracy, and the lives of extraordinary figures: bankers, jewellers, explorers and spies. Filled with glamour and terror, beauty and sorrow, this is an engrossing detective story, a kaleidoscopic history lesson, and a moving portrait of mothers, lovers and daughters across the century, seeking personal freedom.

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SKU: 9781529922721 Category: Tag: Publisher/imprint : Vintage
Page count : 304
Published on 9th January, 2025

Description

A lost princess and a vanished world: a remarkable true story that moves from the Punjab of the Raj to 1930s Paris and the Second World War

‘Remarkable and compelling’ Edmund de Waal

‘Thoroughly engaging’ Kamila Shamsie

In a Mumbai museum in 2007, Livia Manera Sambuy encounters a photograph that will change her life forever.
The caption claims that the Punjabi princess Amrit Kaur sold her jewels in occupied Paris to save Jewish lives, only to be arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp where she died within a year.

For Livia, this marks the beginning of a compulsive search for the truth as she delves into the history of the British Raj, the diamonds and sapphires of the twentieth-century aristocracy, and the lives of extraordinary figures: bankers, jewellers, explorers and spies.

‘An ambitious, absorbing work that peels back the layers of its enigmatic subject and digs deeply into the author’s own emotional vicissitudes’ Jhumpa Lahiri

‘A tantalizing true story . . . In Search of Amrit Kaur plunges into the glittery world of Indian royalty’ New York Times Book Review

Additional information

Weight 0.261 kg
Dimensions 19.8 × 13 × 2.3 cm
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