Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

In Search of Amrit Kaur

A Lost Princess and Her Vanished World

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

As she builds her own life anew, an Italian writer embarks on an all-consuming search for the true story of the mysterious princess H. H. Amrit Kaur of Mandi.

On a sweltering day in 2007, having just lost her brother to illness, Livia Manera Sambuy finds herself at a museum in Mumbai, enthralled by a 1924 photograph of a stunningly elegant Indian princess. What she reads in the picture's caption will change her life forever. This alluring Punjabi royal had supposedly 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.

Could it be true? And if so, how could such a sensational story have gone unreported? Almost against her will, Manera becomes drawn into the mystery. Delving into the history of the British Raj, its durbars and society balls and jubilees, she shows us the precipitous decline of India's royal caste. The lives of extraordinary figures such as the Maharaja Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala, the Jewish banker Albert Kahn, and the Russian explorer Nicholas Roerich―all in a decades-long pursuit of the elusive Amrit Kaur.

When she rendezvouses with the princess's eighty-year-old daughter, Sambuy's search takes on a new dimension, as she strives to reconnect an orphan with the mother who abandoned her in 1933, leaving behind her two children, her raja husband, and a legacy of activism in India's women's civil rights movement.

In Search of Amrit Kaur is an engrossing detective story, a kaleidoscopic history lesson, and a moving portrait of women, across the century, seeking personal freedom.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 23, 2023
      This probing English-language debut from journalist Sambuy details the author’s efforts to uncover the story of Indian princess Amrit Kaur. Sambuy recounts how, while in Mumbai for work, she happened upon a 1924 portrait of Kaur and became fascinated by the photograph’s label, which suggested that Kaur had died at the hands of Nazis after traveling to Europe and selling her jewelry to assist Jews escaping the Third Reich. The author’s search for information about Kaur takes her from Maryland to Paris; Pune, India; and beyond as she turns up fragmentary evidence from the princess’s past, discovering that Kaur passionately advocated for women’s rights, left behind her young children and husband after he married a second wife, and endured harsh conditions at a Besançon, France, concentration camp during WWII. Though definitive answers remain in short supply (Sambuy casts doubt on the claim that Kaur sold her jewelry to aid Jewish refugees), the eloquent and poetic prose (“The crowd was praying with such fervour that I could feel the air vibrating like the string of an enormous double bass”) enlivens the searching historiography. Original and difficult to classify, this is a pleasure to read. Photos.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Loading