The Mulberry Empire

by Philip Hensher

  The issue of what language my characters would have been talking in is not one with which I wanted to trouble the reader; Persian was the general lingua franca, which would have been spoken at Dost Mohammed’s court. Pushto was a more rustic language, not widely understood by the English. The Russians would, of course, have used French to talk to each other as well as to the English.

  There are a couple of very specific debts which ought to be acknowledged here. The journey undertaken in the Anthropological Interlude was carried out by Mr Louis Dupree, the author of one of the best studies of post-war. Afghanistan, but my fictional character has nothing otherwise in common with him. I would also like to express my particular obligation, at the end of the novel, to Patrick Macrory’s Signal Catastrophe, which describes a performed version in a London circus of the Sales’ reunion.

  I incurred many personal debts writing this novel – too many people to name, and some of them, who are deeply involved with the continuing tragic history of this great country, would prefer not to be named. I would particularly like to thank some fellow novelists, whose unselfish friendship, love and support has been unfailing. Alan Hollinghurst, Candia McWilliam, Rachel Cusk, Barbara Trapido and Lynne Truss were unstinting, and when I wrote, what would give them pleasure was always in my mind. The largest debt is to this novel’s onlie begetter, Antonia Byatt, who told me bluntly from the beginning that I must write a long novel, and whose interest, certainty and trust I came to rely on more than I can say. Thanks, too, must go to my editors at the Spectator, the Independent, the Observer and the Mail on Sunday, who generously gave me time off to write in a concentrated way. I would particularly like to thank Boris Johnson and Mark Amory of the Spectator for their constant loyalty; Mark Amory has, over the years, been the nicest and most patiently sympathetic of editors. Georgia Garrett, my agent, was also the best of readers; Philip Gwyn Jones was an editor whose expectations I wanted to live up to. Practical help was offered by James Davidson, who very kindly wrote a line of Greek verse, my father, Ray Hensher, who tried to remedy my total ignorance about early railways and Company armaments, and Matthew Hamlyn, who was the novel’s first civilian reader, whose enthusiasm gave me a great deal of encouragement and whose learned curiosity saved me from many blunders, particularly in the matter of the preserved fish Burnes took to Kabul. The last acknowledgement ought, in all justice, to go to the illustrious dead; but the homages to and thefts from the greatest nineteenth-century writers, from Astolphe de Custine to Surtees, are better left for the reader’s indignant discovery.

  If you enjoyed The Mulberry Empire, try these other fantastic titles from Philip Hensher.

  An astonishing novel, ‘The Emperor Waltz’ draws together various narrative strands into a compelling symphonic whole. In a third-century desert settlement on the fringes of the Roman Empire, a new wife becomes fascinated by a cult that is persecuted by the Emperor Diocletian. In 1922, Christian, a young artist, travels to Weimar to begin his studies at the Bauhaus, where the avant-garde confronts conservative elements around it. With postwar Germany in turmoil, while the Bauhaus attempts to explore radical ways of thinking and living, Christian finds that love will change him for ever. And in 1970s London Duncan uses his inheritance to establish the country’s first gay bookshop in the face of opposition from the neighbours and victimisation by the police.

  Delving deep into the human spirit to explore connections between love, sanctity, commitment and virtue, Philip Hensher takes as his subject small groups of men and women, tightly bound together, trying to change the world through the example of their lives. ‘The Emperor Waltz’ is an absorbing echo-chamber of a novel, innovative and compelling, that explores what it means for us to belong to each other.

  Buy the ebook here

  Backdrops vary in this collection of stories from the author of The Northern Clemency – from turmoil in Sudan following the death of a politician in a plane crash, to southern India where a Soho hedonist starts to envisage the crump and soar of munitions. Each story, regardless of location, reveals a great writer at the peak of his powers.

  Buy the ebook here

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PHILIP HENSHER’s novels include Kitchen Venom, which won the Somerset Maugham Award, and Pleasured. He is a columnist for the Independent and chief book reviewer for the Spectator. He lives in south London.

  OTHER WORKS

  Also by Philip Hensher

  OTHER LULUS

  POWDER HER FACE

  KITCHEN VENOM

  PLEASURED

  THE BEDROOM OF THE MISTER’S WIFE

  PRAISE

  International praise for The Mulberry Empire:

  ‘In the spring of 1839, a vast and awesome Anglo-Indian army rode into Afghanistan, intent on quashing the Amir Dost Mohammed’s expansionist ambitions. Three years later, a lone horseman returned, the only man left alive to tell a tale of murderous defeat… Loaded with exotic local detail, this is a novel that strives to be historic not just in content but in form… Irresistible.’

  HEPHZIBAH ANDERSON, Daily Mail

  ‘Hensher’s engaging and vivid novel reflects only the very best use of history as a narrative canvas. Such is his lightness of touch that the narrative flows fast, fluently and quite brilliantly… [But] where the novel continually soars most magnificently is through the inspired characterisation. A large cast of convincingly drawn characters, most impressively of all a realistically disappointed heroine, comes to life… Wonderful.’

  EILEEN BATTERSBY, Irish Times

  ‘A remarkable achievement. I can pay Philip Hensher no higher compliment than to say his overview of the follies of “history” recalls War and Peace… The rich imagery and the vivid characterisation of a splendidly varied cast make The Mulberry Empire a truly-tremendous read.’

  HUGH MASSINGBERD, Mail on Sunday

  ‘Brilliantly composed… The end, when it comes, happens swiftly, and with devastating precision in the narration. And whatever your politics, you won’t be able to avoid thinking about how this all connects to where we are now… A splendid epic.’

  ALAN CHEUSE, San Francisco Chronicle

  ‘The hundred or so minor and major characters are beautifully drawn… Moving deftly between Kabul, London and St Petersburg, Hensher captures the mood of Western, Victorian inquiry – mapping, botanizing, writing it all down – that seemed, in its bustle and energy, in its production of information, to underpin the whole imperial ideal.’

  JASON GOODWIN, New York Times

  ‘Everything is massive, sumptuously-made and finished, the characters rich, lively and unexpected, the decor Victorian in its precision, variety and profusion. And over everything is a pall of foreboding, which is fulfilled in a fashion both more private and more horrible than the reader fears or expects.’

  JAMES BUCHAN, Evening Standard

  ‘A vast epic… From London drawing rooms to military barracks on the Indian sub-continent and Russian country houses, Hensher demonstrates an enviable mastery of the period.’

  LESLEY MCDOWELL, Sunday Herald

  ‘Hensher has dug into a wonderfully rich seam of history… He will unexpectedly write a brief passage of such beauty, and such imaginative clarity, that one is caught, duped into utter absorption.’

  CAROLINE MOORE, Sunday Telegraph

  ‘A bright brocade of a book… In the manner of the great 19th-century novelists, Philip Hensher describes glittering parties and courts as deftly as a rural Russian’s depression; the details of the disgrace and confinement of Burnes’s lover Bella Garraway in the English countryside are drawn as beautifully as the British governor-general’s ungainly procession through Punjab… Hensher is a marvellous storyteller.’

  CARLA POWER, Newsweek

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