Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan
Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan
Ruby Lal
- Language: English
- Print Length: 280 Pages
- ISBN-10: 9789353459789
- ISBN-13: 978-9353459789
Set in the early decades of the Mughal Empire, this definitive biography of Princess Gulbadan, the daughter of Emperor Babur, offers an enthralling portrait of a charismatic adventurer and unique pictures of the multicultural society in which she lived. Following a migratory childhood that spanned Kabul and north India, Gulbadan spent her middle years in a walled harem established by her nephew Akbar to showcase his authority as the Great Emperor. Gulbadan longed for the exuberant itinerant lifestyle she had known. With Akbar’s blessing, she led an unprecedented sailing and overland voyage, and guided harem women on an extended pilgrimage in Arabia. Amid increasing political tensions, the women’s “un-Islamic” behavior forced their return, lengthened by a dramatic shipwreck in the Red Sea.
Gulbadan wrote a book upon her return, the only surviving work of prose by a woman of her times. A portion of it is missing, either lost to history or redacted by officials who did not want the princess to have her say. As she contemplates the story of the missing pages, Ruby Lal breathes new life into an extraordinary Mughal figure and establishes her place in a history that has long been dominated by men’s actions and words. Vagabond Princess shape-shifts our views of the magnificent Mughals as we begin to see and feel Gulbadan’s world, full of freedom, movement and migration, and encounters with new cultures, tongues, and art forms.
Set in the early decades of the Mughal Empire, this definitive biography of Princess Gulbadan, the daughter of Emperor Babur, offers an enthralling portrait of a charismatic adventurer and unique pictures of the multicultural society in which she lived. Following a migratory childhood that spanned Kabul and north India, Gulbadan spent her middle years in a walled harem established by her nephew Akbar to showcase his authority as the Great Emperor. Gulbadan longed for the exuberant itinerant lifestyle she had known. With Akbar’s blessing, she led an unprecedented sailing and overland voyage, and guided harem women on an extended pilgrimage in Arabia. Amid increasing political tensions, the women’s “un-Islamic” behavior forced their return, lengthened by a dramatic shipwreck in the Red Sea.
Gulbadan wrote a book upon her return, the only surviving work of prose by a woman of her times. A portion of it is missing, either lost to history or redacted by officials who did not want the princess to have her say. As she contemplates the story of the missing pages, Ruby Lal breathes new life into an extraordinary Mughal figure and establishes her place in a history that has long been dominated by men’s actions and words. Vagabond Princess shape-shifts our views of the magnificent Mughals as we begin to see and feel Gulbadan’s world, full of freedom, movement and migration, and encounters with new cultures, tongues, and art forms.
Author Bios:
Emory University professor and acclaimed historian of India, Ruby Lal is the author most recently of Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan, which won the Georgia Author of the Year Award in Biography and was a Finalist in History for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Among the top ten picks of Time Magazine, The Telegraph, and Prospect Magazine London, Empress has been lauded by New Yorker, The Guardian, New York Times, BBC, and Indian Express. Lal is also the author of the much-lauded Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World (2005) and Coming of Age in Nineteenth-Century India: The Girl-Child and the Art of Playfulness (2013). Before joining Emory University, Lal taught at the Johns Hopkins University. She has won fellowships from the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies and the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, and several other establishments.
Emory University professor and acclaimed historian of India, Ruby Lal is the author most recently of Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan, which won the Georgia Author of the Year Award in Biography and was a Finalist in History for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Among the top ten picks of Time Magazine, The Telegraph, and Prospect Magazine London, Empress has been lauded by New Yorker, The Guardian, New York Times, BBC, and Indian Express. Lal is also the author of the much-lauded Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World (2005) and Coming of Age in Nineteenth-Century India: The Girl-Child and the Art of Playfulness (2013). Before joining Emory University, Lal taught at the Johns Hopkins University. She has won fellowships from the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies and the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, and several other establishments.
