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Outlaw: India's Bandit Queen and Me
In June 1992, author Roy Moxham did a very strange he wrote to a bandit in an Indian jail. Phoolan Devi was the controversial and charismatic 'Bandit Queen' hailed as a modern-day Robin Hood in the villages surrounding Delhi. In revenge for her own gang rape, her followers killed 20 high-caste Indians, which led to her surrender and imprisonment. Struck by her story and appalled by her plight, Roy Moxham helped Phoolan Devi obtain justice, offered her encouragement when she became an MP in India on her release, and travelled with her for several years before she was finally gunned down in 2001. Based on the diaries that documented their extraordinary friendship, Moxham offers a fascinating portrait of a remarkable woman and reveals the hidden face of India.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 29, 2010
About the author
Roy Moxham
9 books27 followersRoy Moxham (born 1939) is a British writer, the author of historical books highlighting little-known historical facts.
Moxham was born in Evesham, Worcestershire on 13 September 1939 and went to Prince Henry's Grammar School there. In 1961 he went to Nyasaland (now Malawi) to manage a tea plantation. In 1973 he returned to Britain and established a small gallery in Covent Garden to sell African art, travelling widely in Africa. In 1978 he went to Camberwell College of Art and Crafts, where he qualified as a book and archive conservator. Subsequently, he was a conservator at Canterbury Cathedral Archives and then became Senior Conservator at the Senate House Library of the University of London, from which he retired in 2005. He lives in London, travels widely in south and south-east Asia and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Moxham's first book was The Freelander, a novel based on the exploits of a group of idealists trying to establish a commune on Mount Kenya in the 1890s. His best-known book is The Great Hedge of India. This book is part-travelogue, part-historical treatise on the author's quest to find a 1500-mile long customs hedge built by the British in India to prevent smuggling of salt and sugar. His next book, Tea: Addiction, Exploitation and Empire focuses on the effect of British tea addiction on British policies in Asia and Africa, and includes the author's own experience as a tea plantation manager in Africa. An updated edition " A Brief History of Tea" came out in 2009. In 2010 he published a memoir, "Outlaw: India's Bandit Queen and Me" about his friendship with Phoolan Devi, the Indian bandit turned politician. In 2014 he published as an e-book a novel, "The East India Company Wife", based on the real life of Catherine Cooke, a thirteen-year-old English girl who went to India with her parents in 1709. In November 2016 The Theft of India: The European Conquests of India 1498 – 1765 was published.
Bibliography:
The Theft of India: The European conquests of India 1498 – 1765 (HarperCollins India, New Delhi: November 2016)
The East India Company Wife (e-book: 2014)
Outlaw: India's Bandit Queen and Me (Rider, London: 2010)
A Brief History of Tea (Robinson: 2009)
Tea: Addiction, Exploitation and Empire (Constable, London: 2003)
The Great Hedge of India (Constable, London: 2001)
The Freelander (Team, Nairobi: 1990)
Moxham was born in Evesham, Worcestershire on 13 September 1939 and went to Prince Henry's Grammar School there. In 1961 he went to Nyasaland (now Malawi) to manage a tea plantation. In 1973 he returned to Britain and established a small gallery in Covent Garden to sell African art, travelling widely in Africa. In 1978 he went to Camberwell College of Art and Crafts, where he qualified as a book and archive conservator. Subsequently, he was a conservator at Canterbury Cathedral Archives and then became Senior Conservator at the Senate House Library of the University of London, from which he retired in 2005. He lives in London, travels widely in south and south-east Asia and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Moxham's first book was The Freelander, a novel based on the exploits of a group of idealists trying to establish a commune on Mount Kenya in the 1890s. His best-known book is The Great Hedge of India. This book is part-travelogue, part-historical treatise on the author's quest to find a 1500-mile long customs hedge built by the British in India to prevent smuggling of salt and sugar. His next book, Tea: Addiction, Exploitation and Empire focuses on the effect of British tea addiction on British policies in Asia and Africa, and includes the author's own experience as a tea plantation manager in Africa. An updated edition " A Brief History of Tea" came out in 2009. In 2010 he published a memoir, "Outlaw: India's Bandit Queen and Me" about his friendship with Phoolan Devi, the Indian bandit turned politician. In 2014 he published as an e-book a novel, "The East India Company Wife", based on the real life of Catherine Cooke, a thirteen-year-old English girl who went to India with her parents in 1709. In November 2016 The Theft of India: The European Conquests of India 1498 – 1765 was published.
Bibliography:
The Theft of India: The European conquests of India 1498 – 1765 (HarperCollins India, New Delhi: November 2016)
The East India Company Wife (e-book: 2014)
Outlaw: India's Bandit Queen and Me (Rider, London: 2010)
A Brief History of Tea (Robinson: 2009)
Tea: Addiction, Exploitation and Empire (Constable, London: 2003)
The Great Hedge of India (Constable, London: 2001)
The Freelander (Team, Nairobi: 1990)
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 14, 2020
At first I was a bit disappointed as I was expecting a biography of Phoolan Devi. However, once I got past this I really liked the book with all of its descriptions of life in India. Only thing that was a rather hard to follow was the political system as well as the names of all of Phoolan’s family members, but otherwise I really liked it and now want to read the other books about her!
March 19, 2023
The story of the author’s unlikely relationship with India’s “Bandit Queen” on her journey from dacoit to law maker. Bittersweet and tragic, Roy Moxham writes a very good book..
May 30, 2023
Very interesting subject, I wish the author had stuck to it instead of talking about himself so much.
May 1, 2015
This is more a compilation of meetings & conversations with Phoolan Devi, as well as the letters the author wrote to and received from Devi in chronological order and in a narrative format, as well as a sort of memoir of the author's life during that period. Roy Moxham states at the beginning that he had never intended to write a book about Devi but that after her assassination, he decided to put his memories etc. together as a historical document.
I had heard the news when Devi was originally arrested and I had always wondered what had happened to her. So this is one reason I had purchased this book. I didn't know about the other biographies. Although this is probably not as interesting as one of her biographies, it is interesting to see all that she has to go through after getting out of prison and what happened to her in prison and what she says about her so-called bandit days. It was an eye-opener about politics and life in India. We don't really learn too much about what happens to Devi during the period of time when the author is not visiting her. So from that point of view, it is indeed a very personal document about the friendship of two people from two completely different worlds. It is interesting to hear what she had to say about being exploited by the director who made the movie of her life. And also about what she thought about the other books being written about her.
The life of a lower caste woman is indeed terrible. Married off at the age of 11- which is/was customary in her area. Her 30 something year old husband using a knife to make a "passage" in order to rape her.... (I have heard about this happening in Afghanistan as well. ) This is the cause of many of her future health problems that never seem to get taken care of, ever. Also, that no one really makes much of a fuss in India about those kinds of terrible things happening to a young girl, as if it was normal. Which I feel it may be. The power of upper caste men to get away with just about anything.... You get just a taste of her life in this book. It has made me want to find out more. Also, I really like this author and I have purchased several of his other books.
I had heard the news when Devi was originally arrested and I had always wondered what had happened to her. So this is one reason I had purchased this book. I didn't know about the other biographies. Although this is probably not as interesting as one of her biographies, it is interesting to see all that she has to go through after getting out of prison and what happened to her in prison and what she says about her so-called bandit days. It was an eye-opener about politics and life in India. We don't really learn too much about what happens to Devi during the period of time when the author is not visiting her. So from that point of view, it is indeed a very personal document about the friendship of two people from two completely different worlds. It is interesting to hear what she had to say about being exploited by the director who made the movie of her life. And also about what she thought about the other books being written about her.
The life of a lower caste woman is indeed terrible. Married off at the age of 11- which is/was customary in her area. Her 30 something year old husband using a knife to make a "passage" in order to rape her.... (I have heard about this happening in Afghanistan as well. ) This is the cause of many of her future health problems that never seem to get taken care of, ever. Also, that no one really makes much of a fuss in India about those kinds of terrible things happening to a young girl, as if it was normal. Which I feel it may be. The power of upper caste men to get away with just about anything.... You get just a taste of her life in this book. It has made me want to find out more. Also, I really like this author and I have purchased several of his other books.
April 4, 2020
I loved this one
September 15, 2011
I think I really wanted to read one of the oft mentioned biographies of Phoolan Devi instead of this wierd man's remembrances of visiting her. (I Phoolan Devi (autobiography), or India's Bandit Queen by Mala Sen.) Still interesting, though. I might read Roy Moxham's books about tea sometime.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews