Catch John Keay speaking about his new biography of the greatest enigma in the history of travel.

A talk titled ‘The Tartan Turban: A Scot at Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Court’ on Sunday 2 July 2017 at the Bradford Literature Festival will examine the travels of Scottish-American explorer, Alexander Gardner, who clipped the line between credible adventure and creative invention.

At a time when no other outsider had managed any comparable feat, Gardner roamed the deserts of Turkestan, rode around the world’s most fearsome knot of mountains and fought as the first American in Afghanistan.

Whilst Gardner’s contemporaries generally believed his far-fetched accounts, later historians were more sceptical. Fame finally caught up with him during his long retirement in Kashmir, where he dressed in tartan, lived as a native and regaled audiences with tales of his past, before he passed away, leaving the whereabouts of his accumulated fortune a mystery.

Join Kersten England, Chief Executive of Bradford Council, as she talks with historian, John Keay, about this remarkable man and his adventures.

For more details visit here.

Image: Copyright Raj Gedhu