SAM DALRYMPLE is a Delhi-raised Scottish historian and award-winning filmmaker. He graduated from Oxford University as a Persian and Sanskrit scholar, and also studied at the University of Isfahan and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in Iran. 

In 2018, he co-founded Project Dastaan, a peace-building initiative that reconnects refugees displaced by the 1947 Partition of India.  Dastaan’s work has been exhibited at leading institutions across the world.

His debut film, Child of Empire, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022, and received the inaugural XR History Award from the Körber-Stiftung Foundation. His animated series Lost Migrations sold out at the BFI the same year.

Dalrymple’s writing has appeared in the New York Times and The Spectator, and his work has been featured in TIME, The New Yorker, and The Economist. 

His debut book, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, was an International Bestseller, reaching #1 in India. The book was a “Best Book of 2025” for the Financial Times, The Week, Spectator, BBC History Magazine, NPR, History Today and Daunts. It is being translated into four languages, was shortlisted for the 2025 Eastern Eye Award for History, the Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman 2025 for Best Debut and the Atta Galatta 2025 Non Fiction Prize.