When I read the premise of this book, I was immediately intrigued as I had never heard of the subject of the book, Amrit Kauur, before seeing this book listed here. Amrit Kaur had an intriguing life and mingled with the elite in both India and Europe; she also spent time in a Nazi internment camp during World War II, which is such a fascinating aspect of her life story in my opinion. I wish that the novel revealed newer information that we couldn't easily find online, as after searching up Amrit Kaur on the Internet, what I found consisted of the same information that was included in this author's book. There are parts of the novel and parts of Amrit's story that I wish were explored further in this book and that I felt like the author kind of glossed over. Overall, this was a nice read that I think a lot of people will like, but it left me wanting slightly more from the story of Amrit Kaur's life and experiences.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I like this kind of books where we explore the lives of the people from past. Looking for their footprints and finding all we can about them. Unfortunately I could not finish this book as my device had a reset and I lost the download but whatever I was able to read was very intriguing.

I really wanted to love this book because I wanted to know about the lost princess named Amrit Kaye. However, it seemed less about Amrit Kaur than it was more a book about the author. I found Amrit Kaye’s story to be more fascinating. However, I did not really care for the memoir aspect. I think it would have been better if this was solely a biography on Amrit Kaur.

In Search of Amrit Kaur is part historical nonfiction, focusing on the life of H.H. Amrit Kaur of Mandi, and part memoir, following author Livia Manera Sambuy’s research in trying to uncover the secrets of Amrit Kaur. Sambuy describes the stories, interviews, trips, and interactions she shared with Amrit Kaur’s surviving descendants, connections, and relatives as Sambuy tried to discover what happened to this fascinating, enigmatic woman. Sambuy adds in the information about Amrit Kaur as she discovers it and pieces together the facts to create a fairly incomplete picture of an Indian princess who had been arrested by Nazis for aiding and helping Jews during World War II. Sambuy’s ability to combine two overlapping narratives makes this book a unique example of historical research while highlighting the challenges and scavenger-hunt nature of the discipline. Sambuy’s prose and her insights into her conversations and interviews adds another level (stream of consciousness) to the text, creating a fascinating and unique history book on an equally interesting historical figure. Sambuy’s conversations with Bubbles and Amrit Kaur’s surviving family highlight the connection between history and present-day individuals. Sambuy, despite not gaining the conclusive answers she wanted, still manages to piece together more fragments and create more questions for others who want to seek out Amrit Kaur’s story.

I guess it should have been more obvious to me from the title, but as other reviews have mentioned, this book is more about the author's personal search to discover Amrit Kaur's history, rather than a history of Amrit Kaur. This means that in addition to the author's findings on Amrit, there are also bits of history from that time period, and tidbits of how the author came to make the discoveries.

The entire process that the author went through to learn about Amrit's life was fascinating, and I especially enjoyed the chapters in which the author meets with Amrit's daughter "Bubbles," as they added a nice personal touch to the investigations. I really appreciated the author's dedication to their investigation.

I do wish there'd been more focus on Amrit's life, rather than the related history and the journey to get that information, but as there's limited information available, this was probably about as thorough of a book on Amrit Kaur as we can get.

The blurb of the book sounded interesting - the quest to find out who Amrit Kaur really was. After seeing a photo of the princess in a Mumbai museum, the author, an Italian journalist, is intrigued. Rumors swirl around this mysterious princess: she left her husband and children for Europe; she sold her jewelry in Paris to help Jews escape the Nazis during World War II; she was subsequently imprisoned and died. The author embarks on a research project, which becomes her personal mission and takes her across three continents. But it seems to me that her research ended up being more about the historical times, people related to Amrit who didn’t know much or whose facts were speculative or unreliable, people tangentially linked to Amrit, and more along these lines. Not because the author didn’t conduct massive research, on the contrary. It appears there wasn’t much information for the author on which to base an entire book. I’d say maybe a quarter of the book is about the elusive Amrit Kaur and the rest is about other people, historical events, and other information. I found it interesting that the author states that Amrit Kaur’s husband Raja Joginder Sen “likely had the power” to grant the Dalai Lama asylum in India (based on what his son shared with her) since Sen had been a member of parliament during 1957-1962. I’m not sure when Indian MPs had the power to do so - it was Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who granted the Dalai Lama asylum in India. The author also refers to Lakshman as Rama’s stepbrother in the Indian epic - the Mahabharata. Lakshman was Rama’s half brother - there is a difference…So all in all, while the book had an intriguing premise, and it certainly was challenging digging through tons of leads to find out more about Amrit Kaur and her maybe lifestyle (no spoilers!) - I commend the author for all her work - alas there wasn’t much factual information on Amrit herself to go on for a more that 300-page book about the main character. I rated the book a 2.5 rounded up to 3 for this reason. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for accepting my request to read and review In Search of Amrit Kaur.

Published: 03/14/23

I have a love/hate relationship with biographies and memoirs. My clue that I didn't put enough weight on was "Search." There were more times while reading than not where I wanted the Cliff Notes. I thought for numerous pages I was back in college and needed an outline with a flow chart.

I picked up this book expecting a story to unfold. And in reality, the story was told but read like a foreign language to me. I had no knowledge of the area, the Royal standards, the culture or the time period of that region. Some of the personal relationships or chats were endearing and mostly I found the book sad and cruel. I was exhausted when I finished and still perplexed by her life.

Three stars, my standard. FYI: If I didn't already have access to more books than I can read in my lifetime, I would like to read this again at a later date. I would get more out of it.

A fascinating look at one woman’s life and Sambuy’s quest to uncover her entire story.
I loved all the research, tracking, and tracing the author did. The hunt for information is as fascinating as the information itself.
I also like reading about people I’ve never heard about and Amrit Kaur was totally new for me.
The author goes into a lot of background detail about Indian politics and society before and after 1947 which provided context to the story.
I enjoyed reading it.

This is a well researched and written biography about a fascinating woman as well as memoir. Amrit Kaur was the subject of legend, albeit a not well known one, until Sambuy took up her cause. I learned a great deal from this. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A very good read.