‘Lal has done a service to readers interested in the Mughal period and the many forgotten or poorly remembered women of Indian history. She has helped shine a light on an enigmatic character many think they know but few actually understand’— Vikas Bajaj, New York Times Book Review

‘An absorbing portrait of a remarkable woman, but also offers a stylish reconstruction of a fascinating slice of Mughal life’—Sameer Rahim, The Telegraph (UK)

‘Lal has not only written a revisionist feminist biography; she has also provided a vivid picture of the Mughal court, with its luxuries, beauties, intrigues and horrors. Moreover, at a time when India’s Hindu-nationalist government chooses to emphasize one strain in the country’s history, she offers a reminder of the diversity of Indian tradition’—The Economist

‘Ruby Lal has, in a masterly and enviable manner, crafted a riveting narrative where history and biography come together. Empress is an outstanding work because of its masterly craft, its sensitive and penetrating reading of sources, its imaginative recreation of the colour and the grandeur of the Mughal court and its matchless unravelling of the interplay of human agency and the forces of history. This is the work of a first-rate historian writing at her best’—Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Business Standard

‘What an extraordinary and detailed account of a remarkable woman—amazing! A very impressive, thorough, poetic, humane work’—Deepa Mehta, Filmmaker and Screenwriter

‘In this scintillating, feminist, and exhaustively researched work of narrative history, Ruby Lal brings the legendary empress Nur Jahan to life in all of her glamor and power’—Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood and Brothers of the Gun

‘Lal’s book [is] replete with research but also narrated with a sense of drama befitting a novel’—Somak Ghoshal, Live Mint

‘Lal strives to undo the ways in which [Nur’s] personality is diminished to being an object of love’—Soni Wadhwa, Asian Review of Books

‘Although no later Mughal woman attained Nur’s standing, Lal shows that her reign had a lasting effect on female empowerment’—The New Yorker

‘Lal’s mission here—to illuminate and serve Nur Jahan’s life, to place her in the light . . . In other words, Lal releases Nur from the condescending ways in which previous commentators have trivialized, belittled, and diminished her accomplishments’—Gary Singh, Los Angeles Review of Books

‘Lal’s intriguing biography, with its chronology of [Nur Jahan’s] relatively swift rise to power and even swifter descent, restores [her] to her full splendour’—Jane Ciabattari, BBC

‘In chronicling her life, Lal has shown both academic maturity that testifies to the thoroughness of her research, and a certain muted admiration that keeps you turning the pages. A tale as awe-inspiring as Nur Jahan’s could not have had a better storyteller’—Aekta Kapoor, eShe Magazine

‘Ruby Lal’s marvellous account of Empress Nur Jahan’s life is as intriguing, inspiring, and relevant to us today in twenty-first-century America, as it was to her times in seventeenth-century India’—Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran

‘This is an outstanding book, not only incredibly important but also a fabulous piece of writing.  Here, India’s greatest Empress is reborn in all her fascinating glory in a luminescent account of her life and times. Ruby Lal has written a classic—one of the best biographies to come out this year and certainly the best ever of Nur Jahan’—Amanda Foreman, author of The World Made by Women

‘With stern adoration and a steady hand, Ruby Lal has boldly recut the crown jewel that was Nur Jahan’—Allan Sealy, Writer