Based on over a decade of original archival research, this book shows how Urdu travel writing gave voice to a global imagination that reflected the ambition and aspiration of Indians and Pakistanis as they negotiated their place in the changing world of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In this interdisciplinary study, author Daniel Majchrowicz traces the social and literary history of the Urdu travelogue from 1840 to 1990 in six chronological chapters. Each chapter asks how travel writers used the genre to give meaning to the shifting social and political realities of their colonial and postcolonial worlds. The book particularly highlights the role of women writers in the production of a global imagination in Urdu with an emphasis on travel writing on Asia and Africa.

‘The World in Words maps with consummate skill the expansive, varied, and immensely popular genre of Urdu travel writing, tracing its development from princely pioneers to pious women, and from earnest seekers of knowledge to playful seekers of pleasure. Sparkling, sophisticated, and immensely readable, this book delights, challenges our assumptions and widens our horizons just as travel accounts did for their Urdu readers.’

Francesca Orsini - Professor Emerita of Hindi and South Asian Literature, SOAS, University of London

‘The World in Words is a stunning book, unearthing a vast world of unknown Urdu print travelogues for the most part produced in barely known localities by largely unknown authors. Others have told the story of an emerging print “Urdu sphere,” but Majchrowicz’s brilliant analysis of the creation of this modern literary genre adds richly to that story. Urdu travelogues have enthralled readers for a century and more. Majchrowicz’s study of these travelogues will enthrall readers now.’

Barbara Metcalf - Professor Emerita of History, University of California-Davis

‘The World in Words: Travel Writing and the Global Imagination in Muslim South Asia is both a remarkable work of research on adventure storytelling and an adventure in itself. Charting connected histories, fictive kinships, and pluralistic visions of sublime beauty, Daniel Majchrowicz draws new maps of the subcontinent and the world that are dynamic and expansive, yet intimate. This essential guide to the Urdu travelogue hinges on a truth captured by the great Urdu poet Mir: “sarsarī tum jahāñ se guzre, varnah har jā jahān-e dīgar thā” (You breezed through the world without noticing, but each place was a world of its own). The sheer delight of exploring these worlds with Majchrowicz will lead readers to the ends of the earth and back—with no jet-lag whatsoever.’

Syed Akbar Hyder - Associate Professor of Asian Studies and Islamic Studies, University of Texas at Austin