Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan

A captivating biography of one of the world’s greatest adventurers, the itinerant Mughal Princess Gulbadan, based on her long-forgotten memoir
 
Situated in the early decades of the powerful Mughal Empire, this first-ever biography of Princess Gulbadan offers an enthralling portrait of a charismatic adventurer and a unique perspective on the multicultural society in which she lived. Following a migratory childhood spanning Kabul, Agra, and Lahore, Gulbadan spent her middle age in the harem of her nephew, Emperor Akbar. Although Akbar believed that maintaining a harem showcased his regal authority, Gulbadan took his permission to leave it for an unprecedented sailing and overland voyage during which she guided harem women on pilgrimages in Arabia. Colliding with propriety, the women’s “un-Islamic” behavior in the holy cities forced their return—a journey lengthened by a harrowing shipwreck in the Red Sea.
 
Gulbadan’s memoir chronicling her life’s experiences is the only extant work of prose by a woman from the early modern Muslim world. Yet a portion of it is missing, either lost to history or perhaps redacted by officials who did not want the princess to have her say.
 
Making skillful use of Gulbadan’s memoir, this book is a portal to a richly complex imperial world rife with war and political machinations and where women’s influence, camaraderie, conviviality, sense of adventure, and generosity shine.

About the Author :
Ruby Lal is an acclaimed historian of India, a professor at Emory University, and the author of three books and numerous essays, op-eds, and literary pieces. Her book Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan won the Georgia Author of the Year Award in biography and was a finalist in history for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Review :
“In Vagabond Princess, Ruby Lal coaxes the remarkable Gulbadan out from the shadows of history.”—Sara Wheeler, Wall Street Journal

“A highly appetizing and exhaustively researched biography. . . . Lal does this with aplomb, marshalling the excerpts and ‘close reading’ the paintings for a triumph of historical reconstruction.”—John Keay, Times Literary Supplement

“A historian of India reveals the lush world of a sixteenth-century Mughal princess and her extraordinary pilgrimage to Mecca. . . . The author’s impressive scholarship encompasses Gulbadan’s immense influences and distinctive style. . . . Finally, a serious consideration of Gulbadan’s achievement, long ‘sidelined by modern historians.’”—Kirkus Reviews

“Lal’s research into previously hidden worlds is at the forefront of an exciting academic movement.”—Lucy Moore, Literary Review

“[Gulbadan’s] voice humanises some of the great characters of the time and provides a rare first-hand picture of life during the dramatic rise of the Mughals.”—Anthony Sattin, The Spectator

“Gulbadan, literate, observant, intelligent, a central observer to the establishment of the Mughal Empire, is a historical figure well worth discovering. Lal’s enthusiasm for her is infectious. . . . [Lal] is a fluent writer, with a good grasp of atmosphere and description [and who] knows how to tell a good story.”—Peter Gordon, Asian Review of Books

“Like a meticulous and careful detective . . . Lal unearths clues [and] writes with authority and panache.”—Madhulika Liddle, Frontline (India)

“At a time when the National Council for Educational Research and Training is reducing Mughal history content in school history textbooks in India, it is all the more important to continue bringing the lives of Mughal women to the attention of the world. Ruby Lal has succeeded in giving us a biography of an extraordinary life that women in the twenty-first century in India and the world can draw inspiration from.”—India Currents

Longlisted for the 2024 Cundill Prize, sponsored by McGill University

Finalist for the Georgia Author of the Year Award

Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize in Biography, sponsored by the University of Edinburgh

“An astonishing work by one of the most exciting historians writing today. Vagabond Princess is more than just a brilliant page-turner of a biography, narrating in vivid detail a story few people know. It is a passionate and compelling argument to place the extraordinary Gulbadan among the pantheon of great adventurers like Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo. I loved this book.”—Reza Aslan, author of Zealot and An American Martyr in Persia

“Vagabond Princess is a deeply feminist text interrogating the making of archives, obsessed with imagining the spirit of freedom and love of learning in certain Mughal women, with a stunning buildup of the concept-metaphor of mujawir as ‘vagabond.’ A splendid teaching text, but also a reading text for sheer instructive pleasure; as we follow the epistemological performance of the making of the book with the book itself.”—Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, author of Other Asias

“In Vagabond Princess, Ruby Lal brilliantly illuminates the remarkable life and talent of Princess Gulbadan Begum, daughter of Emperor Babur and historian of her own times. Lost and forgotten for many centuries, Gulbadan and her work live again through Lal’s magisterial account of the sixteenth-century Mughal court.”—Amanda Foreman, author of The Duchess

“A work of meticulous scholarship and brilliant storytelling, Vagabond Princess is both an epic historical tale and a compelling personal account of one of the most interesting women to have lived during the Mughal Empire.”—Daniel H. Weiss, Homewood Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and president emeritus of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

“Meticulous archival research combines with a strikingly imaginative evocation of the world inhabited by Mughal women in Ruby Lal’s writing. Whether set against the dust and grit of imperial caravans, salt-lashed sea voyages, or the manicured precision of Mughal gardens, her vagabond princess, Gulbadan, surprises us at every turn. A superb achievement.”—Nandini Das, author of Courting India: Seventeenth-Century England, Mughal India, and the Origins of Empire