Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River
One of the longest rivers in the world, the Indus rises in Tibet, flows west across India, and south through Pakistan. For millennia it has been worshipped as a god; for centuries used as a tool of imperial expansion. Today it is the glue of Pakistan's fractious union.
Empires of the Indus follows the river upstream and back in time, on a voyage through two thousand miles of geography and five millennia of history, through a landscape where the past still resonates today.
Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize (2006), Somerset Maugham Award (2009), Dolman Travel Prize (2009), La Toison d'Or du livre d’aventure vécue (2011), Sufi Shah Inayat Writer Award (2013), and Premio Hemingway Reportage (2014)
"The truly great achievement of this wonderful book is to reveal, unflinchingly and with panache, the rich and varied heritage of the Indus in all its appalling splendour"
Guardian
"As history, it is spellbinding. As the first book of a young writer, it's an impressive achievement."
New Statesman
Sunday Times
Financial Times
Judge of the ZHR Prize, Pakistan, 2020
John Murray Publishers (UK 2008); Hachette (India 2008); W.W. Norton (USA 2010); Actes Sud (France 2011); De Bezige Bij (Netherlands 2011); Adelphi (Italy 2013); Green Books (Kerala, 2018); Indus Source Books (Marathi, 2019); forthcoming: Zhanet 45 (Bulgaria); Editora Âyiné (Brazil).
Painting by Anna Bhushan