'The Tartan Turban' shortlisted for best historical biography award!

We’re delighted that John Keay has been shortlisted for the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography for The Tartan Turban!

The chair of judges, Professor Roy Foster, said of the book that 'the multiple lives of a legendary and self-fabulizing adventurer are tracked through early nineteenth-century India with the skills of a tenacious detective.'

Using much original material, including newly discovered papers by Alexander Gardner himself, this investigative biography takes the reader on a quest from the American West to the Asian East to unravel the greatest enigma in the history of travel.

John Keay has been a professional writer, scholar, broadcaster and traveller for more than 40 years. He has written and presented over 100 documentaries for BBC Radios 3 and 4 and is the author of some two dozen books mainly on Asia and exploration. For his literary contribution to Asian studies he was awarded the Royal Society for Asian Affairs’ Sir Percy Sykes Memorial Medal in 2009.

Find out more here.