ACCLAIMED British writer and historian William Dalrymple will take his audience on a ride through India's rich past in a reading today in Singapore - and in the process, have a brush with his own past, on his first visit here.

He will read from his latest book, The Last Mughal: The Fall Of A Dynasty, Delhi 1857, in a performance that is set to be a highlight of the Kalaa Utsavam festival now on at The Esplanade.

The annual festival was launched in 2002 and celebrates Indian arts and culture.

The reading is made more notable - not to mention, dramatic - by the fact that Dalrymple will be accompanied by music, poetry and songs by Vidya Shah, a North Indian Hindustani vocal singer.

The Last Mughal is about the 1857 Indian Uprising, its savage repression by the British, and the fall of the Mughal dynasty.

It tells the story of the revolt, using first-hand accounts to focus on its reluctant leader, Bahadur Shah Zafar, the octogenarian Mughal emperor who preferred to write poetry instead of waging war.

Prize-winning Dalrymple, 43, has been hailed as one of the best travel writers of his generation, and is also famous for his historical narratives. Well-known titles include White Mughals: Love And Betrayal In Eighteenth-Century India (2002), and From The Holy Mountain: A Journey In The Shadow Of Byzantium (1997), which traces his route through Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt following the trail of early Eastern Christianity.

Read the full story in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times' Life!