Taken from the inside cover of "Trade Wind" by M.M. Kaye
M. M. Kaye was born in India, and spent most of her childhood and much of her early married life in that country. Her ties with India are strong: her grandfather, father, brother and husband all served the Raj, and her grandfather's first cousin, Sir John Kaye, wrote standard accounts of the Indian Mutiny and the first Afghan War. When India achieved independence her husband joined the British Army and for the next nineteen years she followed the drum to all sorts of exciting places she would not otherwise have seen, including Kenya, Zanzibar, Egypt, Cyprus and Germany. M. M. Kaye has written a number of detective novels, but is known for her highly successful historical novels, including the bestselling The Far Pavilions and Shadow of the Moon.
The following is a photo that M.M. Kaye's family supplied for me. It is taken at her 90th birthday party, around when I launched my website. The family member who contacted me also told me that there is to be a third part to her autobiography, "Enchanted Evening", that will be published in the US in about a year or more. It goes along with her other two books, "Sun in the Morning" and "Golden Afternoon".
The picture in the background is MM Kaye's husband who was a British officer in the Corps of Guides (the same regiment as in The Far Pavilions) up until the time of partition in India. After that, he joined the British army where he retired as a General in the late 1960s. The photo in the round frame is MM Kaye as a young woman.
Please do not ask for the e-mail address of the family, since I will not give it out unless granted permission. I would rather not ask that of them, so please do not ask it of me.
M.M. Kaye died on January 29, 2004 at about 7:30 pm.
