Sam Dalrymple




SAM DALRYMPLE is a Delhi-raised Scottish historian and award-winning filmmaker. He graduated from Oxford University as a Persian and Sanskrit scholar, and also studied at the University of Isfahan and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in Iran. He has worked across South and Central Asia, including stints with Turquoise Mountain in Kabul, and with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Hunza and Lahore. 

In 2018, he co-founded Project Dastaan, a peace-building initiative that reconnects refugees displaced by the 1947 Partition of India. His debut film, Child of Empire, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022, and received the inaugural XR History Award from the Körber-Stiftung Foundation. His animated series Lost Migrations sold out at the BFI the same year. Dastaan’s work has been exhibited at leading institutions including the Smithsonian, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Asian Art Museum, and the Partition Museum, with support from the British Council, Australia Council for the Arts, and the Ford Foundation. 

Dalrymple’s writing has appeared in the New York Times and The Spectator, and his work has been featured in TIME, The New Yorker, and The Economist. He is a columnist for Architectural Digest, and in 2025, Travel & Leisure named him ‘Champion of the Travel Narrative’. He runs the history Substack @travelsofsamwise. 

His debut book, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, will be published by William Collins in June 2025.

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Substack
Instagram
samdalrymple123@gmail.com

Sam Dalrymple





SAM DALRYMPLE is a Delhi-raised Scottish historian and award-winning filmmaker. He graduated from Oxford University as a Persian and Sanskrit scholar, and also studied at the University of Isfahan and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in Iran. He has worked across South and Central Asia, including stints with Turquoise Mountain in Kabul, and with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Hunza and Lahore. 

In 2018, he co-founded Project Dastaan, a peace-building initiative that reconnects refugees displaced by the 1947 Partition of India. His debut film, Child of Empire, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022, and  received the inaugural XR History Award from the Körber-Stiftung Foundation. His animated series Lost Migrations sold out at the BFI the same year.  Dastaan’s work has been exhibited at leading institutions including the Smithsonian, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Asian Art Museum, and the Partition Museum, with support from the British Council, Australia Council for the Arts, and the Ford Foundation. 

Dalrymple’s writing has appeared in the New York Times and The Spectator, and his work has been featured in TIME, The New Yorker, and The Economist. He is a columnist for Architectural Digest, and in 2025, Travel & Leisure named him ‘Champion of the Travel Narrative’. He runs the history Substack @travelsofsamwise. 

His debut book, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, will be published by William Collins in June 2025.




SHATTERED LANDS: FIVE PARTITIONS AND THE MAKING OF MODERN ASIA


Shattered Lands, for the first time, presents the whole story of how the Indian Empire was unmade. How a single, sprawling dominion became twelve modern nations. How maps were redrawn in boardrooms and on battlefields, by politicians in London and revolutionaries in Delhi, by kings in remote palaces and soldiers in trenches.


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Author
To be published by William Collins and Harper Collins India in June 2025; WW Norton & Company in February 2026



PROJECT DASTAAN

Project Dastaan (داستان‎/दास्तान: “Story”) is a peace-building initiative which examines the human impact of global migration through the lens of the largest forced migration in recorded history, the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan. We interview Partition witnesses, then reconnect them with their ancestral homes using 360VR Video.

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Project (Founder)
Ford Foundation JustFilms, 
AHRC,
Arts Council England and Australia Council for the Arts

LOST MIGRATIONS

Episode 1: REST IN PAPER

Episode 2: SULTANA’S DREAM

Episode 3: SEABIRDS

Produced in collaboration with Puffball Studios and Spitting Image Bangalore. 

Watch on MUBI INDIA
Watch on NOWNESS ASIA

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Animated Anthology
(Producer)

Funded by British Council and National Geographic Society

CHILD OF EMPIRE

Child of Empire is an animated VR documentary for Oculus Quest, in which you experience the largest forced migration in human history, the Partition of India and Pakistan. 

Embody the childhood memories of two survivors, as they reflect on their journeys across a divided homeland.

Produced in collaboration with The CatchLight Foundation, CreativeXR, and BFI/Doc Society.

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VR Documentary
(Producer)

Winner,
XR History Award
Nominee, Webby Award 2021,
“Best VR Headset Experience”

Sundance 2022 (World Premiere)
Sheffield DocFest
Melbourne IFF
Atlanta Film Festival

Venice Gap Financing Market 2020

ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST COLUMNIST

Since 2023 I have been a columnist for Architectural Digest India. Find a selection of my articles below:

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Architectural Digest
(Columnist)

                                    COUCHSURFING WITH THE TALIBAN

Sam Dalrymple explores the surprising interactions between Western travelers and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, illustrating how digital platforms like Couchsurfing can foster human connections even in conflict zones.

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New York Times Feature
(Author)

THE MUSIC OF GWALIOR

Sam Dalrymple embarks on an adventure through a land where cultures merge and sounds collide

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Conde Nast Traveller Feature
(Author)

NAVIGATING GILGIT-BALTISTAN

An intriguing adventure through one of Pakistan's most historically tumultuous regions

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Conde Nast Traveller Feature
(Author)

REJECTING THE RAJ

Ramachandra Guha discovers a forgotten chapter of Indian history concerning a group of largely British renegades who devoted themselves to Gandhi’s cause

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Spectator Book Review
(Author)

THE TRIALS OF ENGLANDS FIRST AMBASSADOR TO INDIA

The story of the first English Embassy to the Mughal Court

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Spectator Book Review
(Author)

A HINDU CROMWELL COURTEOUSLY DECAPITATES HUNDREDS OF MAHARAJAS

Through a mix of charm, diplomacy and coercion, Sardar Patel, Nehru’s uncompromising deputy, ensured that 565 princely states vanished from the map of India in 1947

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Spectator Book Review
(Author)

SOUTH ASIA IN THE TIME OF THE BREAKING OF NATIONS

Avinash Paliwal’s gripping tale of espionage opens in 1949, with newly independent India, Pakistan and Burma racked by rivalries in one of the most intricately partitioned areas on Earth

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Spectator Book Review
(Author)

A STATE OF REFINEMENT: RAFFLES UDAIPUR AND RAFFLES JAIPUR

Raffles hotels in Udaipur and Jaipur are luxurious Rajasthan sanctuaries where a romance with ancient temples and fortresses is all but assured

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Tatler Travel Feature
(Author)

AMMA

A groundbreaking production from Tara Theatre that combines virtual reality with theatre to step into one woman’s memories of Bangladeshi Independence and 1970s Britain.
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Immersive Theatre Piece
(VR Line Producer)

Client Work for Tara Theatre (London), managing week long 360Video shoot in Bangladesh

Winner - Digital Innovation Award at the 2023 UK Theatre Awards



Photos



Travel & Leisure Awards, Delhi 2024
Partition Museum, Delhi 2022
The Smithsonian, Washington DC 2025
British Council Alumni Awards, Delhi 2025
BFI Exhibition, London 2025
Sahitya Aajtak, Delhi 2022
Coffee Table Discussion, Lahore 2021
V&A Exhibition, London 2022