Sam Dalrymple




SAM DALRYMPLE is a Delhi-raised Scottish historian. His debut book, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia (William Collins UK/ Harper Collins India/ W.W. Norton US), was an International Bestseller and reached #1 in India. It was named a Best Book of 2025 by the Financial Times, NPR, The Spectator, BBC History Magazine, History Today, The Week and Daunt’s, and is being translated into five languages. 

It was shortlisted for the 2026 Cundill History Prize, the 2026 Orwell Prize for Political Writing, the 2025 Eastern Eye Award for History, the Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman 2025 for Best Debut and the Atta Galatta 2025 Non Fiction Prize, and longlisted for the Kamala Chattopadhyay NIF Prize 2026, Kalinga Literary Prize 2026, the RC Majumdar Prize 2026, the Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Award 2026 and the VoW English Book Awards 2026.

Sam writes the history Substack Travels of Samwise, and guest-edited the MARG volume Beyond the Mughal Arch (2026). His writing has appeared in TIME, the New York Times, The Spectator, Conde Nast Traveller, Tatler and Architectural Digest. Travel & Leisure named him ‘Champion of the Travel Narrative’. He also leads heritage tours across India, Pakistan and Turkey with Sampan Travel, Steppes Travel, Banyan Tours and Chase Travel, and speaks regularly on empire, borders and partition.

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. In 2018 he co-founded Project Dastaan, a peace-building initiative reconnecting 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 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.


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samdalrymple123@gmail.com
Bio
 Shattered Lands
Project Dastaan
Architectural Digest
Child of Empire
Lost Migrations
Case Studies


Lost Migrations



STREAMING NOW ON MUBI INDIA AND NOWNESS ASIA

Funded by The British Council and National Geographic Society

Official Selections:
Atlanta Film Festival (Rest in Paper)
British Film Institute Southbank (World Premiere) Lost Migrations is a three-part animated series which tells the untold stories of the Partition through the voices of the colonised. Most of the literature and cultural exploration of Partition has focused on the division of the province of Punjab by British authorities in 1947.

Lost Migrations focusses on the untold stories of 1947 from other regions and communities in South Asia. Each episode sheds light on a community that has been excluded from South Asian literature and historiography: women, the Chettiar diaspora and the stateless. This project aims to showcase the diverse voices of the subcontinent in an engaging way, combining local artistic styles and traditions that celebrate the individuality of each community.

Episode 1: REST IN PAPER
Based on the true story of Ghulam Ali, Rest in Paper is the absurd story of bureaucracy and the refugees whose lives it destroyed.

Episode 2: SULTANA’S DREAM
Sultana’s Dream depicts the hopes and shattered dreams of an elderly woman based in contemporary Calcutta through flashbacks of the experiences of women across the subcontinent.

Episode 3: SEABIRDS
Over an intimate conversation whilst cooking with her grandmother, eight-year-old Nithya learns of her family’s escape from Burma during World War II, and how new borders cut her family off from their childhood home in Rangoon.

Production Company:
Dastaan Films Pvt Ltd/Puffball Studios/Spitting Image Bangalore

Countries of Production: United Kingdom / India / Pakistan