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"One of the most inspirational stories of World War II ... Reading this book is like watching a butterfly trapped in a net." -- Daily Mail This is the riveting story of
Noor Inayat Khan, a descendant of Indian royalty--Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore--who became a British secret agent for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II.
In this updated twentieth-anniversary edition of
Spy Princess, Shrabani Basu tells the moving story of Noor's extraordinary life--from her birth in Moscow, where her father was a Sufi preacher, to her capture by the Germans. Noor was one of only three female SOE agents to be awarded the George Cross. Even under torture, she revealed nothing--not even her real name.
Held in solitary confinement, her hands and feet chained together, Noor was starved and beaten, yet the Germans could not break her spirit. Ten months after her capture, she was taken to Dachau concentration camp. On September 13, 1944, she was executed. Her final word was
"Liberté."
About the author
SHRABANI BASU is a journalist and
Sunday Times best-selling author. Her books include the critically acclaimed
The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer and
Victoria & Abdul (now a major Oscar-nominated motion picture starring Dame Judi Dench). She is the founder of the Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust and an ambassador for the RAF Museum. She is a frequent commentator on Indian history and Empire on radio and television, and has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of London for services to literature.
