Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan

by Shrabani Basu

This is the remarkable biography of Noor Inayat Khan, code named "Madeleine". The first woman wireless transmitter in occupied France during WWII, she was trained by Britain's SOE and assumed the most dangerous resistance post in underground Paris. Betrayed into the hands of the Gestapo, Noor resisted intensive interrogation, severe deprivation and torture with courage and silence, revealing nothing to her captors, not even her own name. She was executed at Dachau in 1944.

"Spy Princess" details Noor's inspiring life from birth to death, incorporating information from her family, friends, witnesses, and official records including recently released personal files of SOE operatives. It is the story of a young woman who lived with grace, beauty, courage and determination, and who bravely offered the ultimate sacrifice of her own life in service of her ideals. Her last word was "Liberte".

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Biography, War, World War II, India, Historical

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Shrabani Basu graduated in History from St Stephen’s College, Delhi and completed her Masters from Delhi University. In 1983, she began her career as a trainee journalist in the bustling offices of The Times of India in Bombay.

Since 1987, Basu has been the London correspondent of Ananda Bazar Patrika group --writing for "Sunday, Ananda Bazar Patrika, "and "The Telegraph."

Basu has appeared on radio and TV in the UK and founded the Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust for a memorial for the Second World War heroine which was unveiled in 2012. She is the author of "Curry: The Story of the Nation's Favourite Dish," "Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan," and "Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen's Closest Confidant."

Reviews

[Violet wells · Rating 3 out of 5]

Noor Inayat Khan was the daughter of an Indian Sufi mystic of royal heritage and his American wife. The family lived in Paris before the second world war broke out and Noor wrote and published children’s stories. When the Nazis invaded France Noor and her family escaped to England where she joined the WAAF. Later she was recruited by SOE as a wireless operator and returned to Paris in what was one of the most dangerous jobs of the war (average life expectancy of an undercover wireless operator was six weeks).

Noor is an utterly compelling character. While training to be an SOE agent most of her instructors were adamant she should not be used. She was easily flustered, scatter-brained, terrified of weapons. She was also beautiful and thus highly conspicuous – the obverse of ideal for a secret agent. SOE however were desperate for wireless operators. Upon arriving in France she quickly made several highly dangerous mistakes – forgetting passwords, leaving her codes lying about, preserving written versions of all the messages she sent to London which she was told to destroy. And yet, she was to become tremendously courageous and cunning and eventually was the last Wireless operator at large in Paris with the entire Gestapo on her trail.

It has to be said this isn’t a great biography. This isn’t wholly the fault of the biographer (though her repeated reference to British “jets” becomes annoying as surely it’s common knowledge Britain was yet to produce a jet aircraft in 1943/44). By the nature of her work Noor was elusive. The months before her capture she was often alone or liaising with fellow agents who were to be executed by the Nazis. So there are big gaps which have to be filled in with guesswork, which is also true of periods of her captivity in Gestapo prisons.

But was Noor a pawn in a much bigger story? Events in France at this time, six months or so before the Normandy landings, are as shrouded and electric with conspiracy theories as the assassination of JFK. Shrabani Basu, the author of this biography, writes the official and probably sanitised version of Noor’s life. She believes everything’s she told and presents it as a neat and tidy tragic story. That the capture of practically the entire network Noor worked for was down to bad luck and a double agent called Henri Dericourt. It has since come to light that quite possibly Dericourt was a triple agent, secretly working for MI6. It’s more than likely that he wasn’t the only triple agent. So a theory has emerged that it was in the interests of the Allied high command that the Gestapo captured these agents and played back their radios to London allowing the British secret services to disseminate false information to the Nazis. While the Gestapo were giggling at their cunning at coaxing the British to send arms and money right into their hands the British, in what may well have been a triple bluff, were sending these arms drops to the Calais region with the implication that the landings would take place there and not Normandy. In war many difficult decisions have to be made. In that context the sacrifice of twenty or so agents to save the lives of thousands upon thousands of soldiers has a convincing logic. It’s certainly highly suspicious that SOE chose to ignore so many clear warning signs that their agents had been captured and continued to send messages to their wireless sets.
If you’re interested in the female SOE agents sent to France I recommend the brilliant A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII. by Sarah Helm

And if you’re interested in Noor there’s a very good 40 minute documentary on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA_ab...

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someone should make a film of Noor Inayat Khan’s life. I can’t understand why they haven’t already.

Noor was born a short distance from the Kremlin to an American mother and an Indian Sufi father, himself of royal blood. The family later moved to Paris. Noor became the author of children’s books in her early twenties and was quite successful - Twenty Jataka Tales. When the Nazis arrived the family fled to London.
Noor joined SOE and trained to be a wireless operator. She was flown into France at a time (the summer of 1943) when the Gestapo had infiltrated the circuit she was to join. It was a man now known to have been working for the Gestapo who she liaised with in Paris. Basically within a month the Gestapo had arrested virtually an entire network of British, Canadian and French agents and French resistant fighters. They were using captured British wireless sets to send messages to London, organising drops of arms and agents which they would immediately intercept, establishing safe houses which were traps. Noor somehow evaded capture and was now the only wireless operator in contact with London still at large in Paris. Virtually all the resources of the Gestapo are now focused on capturing her. Every time she transmits she runs the risk of the detector vans picking up her location. She has to carry her wireless set from one house to another in Paris where there are Gestapo spot checks everywhere. She’s eventually betrayed by a French woman who is jealous of her and wants the reward.

If you want an example of how huge a part luck played in determining whether a person lived or died in the war there’s a very cruel one here. One night Noor manages to escape from the Gestapo prison. She’s on the roof and is about to jump down onto a neighbouring roof when there’s an air raid. She knows the guards always check all prisoners are in their cells whenever there’s an air raid. She manages to climb down onto a balcony of the neighbouring building and enter an apartment. Unfortunately her absence has been noted and the Gestapo have surrounded the area. She is caught as she tries to leave the front door of the building, which in all probability wouldn’t have happened had there been no air raid that night.

After this she is sent to a prison in Germany where she is permanently chained in solitary confinement. Eventually she will be taken to Dachau.

I suppose the reason her life hasn’t been made into a film is there’s no heart-warming ending. Which maybe begs the question, why do we always need a heart-warming ending?
There are two documentaries about her on youtube -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdQTt...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8hSC...

There's a memorial sculpture of her in Gordon Square (where Virginia Woolf lived).

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

March is women's history month, at least here in the U.S. (I'm never sure if these months and days are an international thing. Earlier this week, it was Polar Bear Awareness day). Why do we need a woman's history month? Well, according to holiday and some textbooks (older ones), women just cooked, cried, and popped at babies, when they weren't being sluts. Thank good for PBS and other networks that show us differently.

Of course, here in the U.S., we only care about American women cause those Europeans are strange, chopping off thier wives' heads and everything.

Which is a shame because the story of Noor Inayat Khan should be more widely known, especially here in the U.S. Born in Moscow, to an Indian father (a princely son of a royal house) and an American mother (herself a version of American royalty), raised in Britian and France, Noor Khan was an international child before the term was really thought of. Look at how many countries can claim her.

Additionally, she was a Muslim who was engaged to Jewish man. All this in pre-WW II Europe.

Upon the invasion of France, Noor and most of her family (her father had died by then, one brother stayed) fled to Britian. Noor Khan eventually joined S.O.E. She was a highly princpled, perhaps overly idealstic woman who did not believe in lying. For instance, she told the British comittee that was interviewing her for a comission, extactly what she thought about Indian Independence. A view that differed greatly from theirs, yet she was awarded the comission anyway, and recommended to SOE.

She was also a musician and rather talented children's author who believe strongly in fighting aganist the Nazis. Trained by the SOE as a wireless operator, Khan was sent to occupied France to join the ill-fated Prosper circuit. On the circuit's collaspe, she stayed on step of the Getaspo (including some very close calls), and despite great personal risk, kept transmitting. When she was captured, it was because she was betrayed.

Khan's story is impressive in two ways. First, despite her royal princess status, Khan seems to have been an everywoman. She might have beena princess, but money was tight. She was bound to her family in much the way many of us are today. At times, she suffered from depression and a desire to find herself. Second, despite the luke warm recommandations of some of her SOE instructors, despite her "soft" upbringing, Khan did not break during her capture. In fact, unlike some of her male counterparts (manly man who would do things), Khan did not break, did not work with the Nazis, or plead for her life. If Anne Frank is used as a door to the Holocaust, Noor Khan should be an example for the power of the human spirit to stay true to principle and cause despite the evils visitied upon a body. She needs more than just an Indian (Bollywood) biopic.

Basu seesm to have written the book under the asupices of the Inayat Khan estate/society, yet her biography is balanced and she does consider the stress of a famous family on the children.

Khan's book is still in print and intersted readers should also pick it up.

[Ria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Noor Inayat Khan's story is remarkable and this made for a page turner as the subject matter was so interesting.

Buuuut, my enjoyment (which seems like the wrong word given the Nazis and executions and so on) was severely hampered by the writing. The tone wildly oscillated from slavishly imagining the thoughts and feelings of an idealised heroine to sticking so closely to the facts as to make the writing both brief and vague. The narrative voice was continually jarring, I kept finding myself rolling my eyes and wanting to challenge the author on her logic. Ms Basu is obviously passionate about her subject and a huge amount of research has contributed to this book which is very commendable - but this severely needed an editor to pick a tone and stick with it, or at the very least to remove the frequent defence of Noor's mistakes (the 'filing' point for example), as this undermined credibility - biographies shouldn't shy away from being critical of the person in question, no matter how remarkable.

All in all, I'm quite frustrated - I had high expectations and really this book deserves more than 2 stars, but I know I will always look back at Spy Princess and feel disappointed. Such a shame.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm surprised this book isn't more well-known and that it took so long for someone to realize that this incredible woman deserved a full-length biography.

Noor was the daughter of an artistic Indian father and an American mother. Raised in France, she was a children's author who was about to embark on an ambitious illustrated children's newspaper called "Bel Age" ("the Beautiful Age") when Hitler invaded Poland.

She joined the WAAF and was trained as a radio operator, then joined the SOE. Many of her SOE instructors thought she lacked certain key qualities that necessarily made a good agent but as she was one of the most advanced radio operator they had available, this was overlooked and she became the first female radio operator to be dropped into occupied France.

Shrabani Basu's biography is meticulously researched but detail doesn't bog down the narrative: it's a gripping and inspirational read regarding a truly beautiful and determined woman.

[Regina Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you following my reading you know I have a slight obsession with the women of the SOE. All of my reading to date has been an overall examination of the program and its contribution to the war, particularly its role in preparing for the D-Day invasion. I’ve never done a reading on a specific member of the program. If you are going to read on one particular figure of the extraordinary program Noor Inayat Khan is definitely the one to start with. An Indian princess on her father’s side with an American mother, Noor was born in Moscow and raised in Paris. She was an accomplished musician whose brother studied the violin under Stravinsky and was an author of children’s books. Her stories were broadcast on the Children’s Hour of Radio Paris. She was working on the concept of publishing a children’s newspaper when she was forced to flee with her family to London as Hitler’s army was advancing towards Paris. Her father was a Sufi, a Muslim mystic, who also adhered to the teachings of Gandhi. Noor was raised with a sense of religious tolerance and was a Muslim who fell in love with a Jew. Although raised as a pacifist she came to the conclusion that not actively resisting Hitler was tantamount to an accomplice to murder.

She volunteered for Women’s Auxiliary Air Force where she learned radio transmission. This combined with language skills attracted the attention of the newly created program of training women for espionage behind enemy lines of the SOE. She was detached to the French section, whose main aim was to prepare the ground for the invasion of France. She was attached to the Prosper circuit, who had become one of the largest, busiest, and most hazardous forces around Paris and of the SOE networks. Noor was the first woman operator to be flown into occupied France and of the thirty-nine women sent to France thirteen, including Noor, never returned.

The average survival time for a radio operator in the field was approximately six weeks. Of the more than 200 captured agents of the two sections of the SOE, only twenty-six lived to tell their tale. Within ten day of Noor’s arrival the network had been infiltrated and fallen into complete disarray with sweeping arrests of up to 1500 people. London wanted to extract her but she refused because she was the last radio operator left in Paris. She wanted to remain until a replacement could be sent. London accepted her response as an “offer of sacrifice of a soldier and allowed her to remain.” She eluded capture for three months and continued the dangerous work. She accomplished a great deal including managing to facilitate the escape of thirty Allied airmen shot down in France. A replacement was found and plans were to extract her on October 15, 1943. She was arrested the day before and was eventually executed at Dachau on September 13, 1944 with three other SOE female agents. Her contributions were recognized by both the UK and France, awarded the George Cross from UK and Coix de Guerre from France. She was one of only three women SOE agents to receive the George Cross.

Fantastic book! There is a great deal of debate around whether these women were trained properly, whether they should have been sent behind enemy lines, and what their accomplishments really were. Many books are heavily skewered either in lionizing the women or tampering down their involvement. Basu strikes a very good balance in her work. It is obvious she has a great deal of admiration for Noor, but she doesn’t hesitate to show her mistakes and weaknesses. I have my own biases and feel they were incredibly important and am happy to be in Eisenhower’s camp on this one who credits the women’s activity by shortening the war by six month. I like Ike!

[Wanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is the inspiring biography of Noor Inayat Khan, daughter of an Indian spiritualist and an American who became an SOE agent, working as a wireless operator in occupied France during WW II. With respect to the story itself, it is truly inspiring. This tiny, shy, quiet girl is trained by the SOE, sent to Paris, and is the last surviving agent in her cell when she is finally captured. The courage that she showed is matched only by her determination to be a good agent for her side. The fact that she was not considered temperamentally or intellectually capable of being a great agent, doubled her tenacity and she succeeded beyond the wildest speculation of her friends and supporters in the SOE community. The author gives us a great flavor of who this young woman was.
The other positive in this book was the wonderful description of the SOE training involved in the making of an agent. It truly read like James Bond stuff.
What I did not particularly care for in the book is that I found it to be somewhat disjointed. There was something about it that did not hang together well and I felt at times as though I was reading a cliff note. Moreover, although the author did give us an idea of who Noor was, there was something missing. A person is more than the result of a father who imparts the abhorrence of lying and a love for the spiritual. Did the mother have nothing to contribute to Noor as a person? Also, what was Noor’s motivation? The motivation part eluded me. Perhaps the author was limited page-wise and had to omit details that would have fleshed this out more.

[Aravind P · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the story of a young woman, Noor Inayat Khan, born to an Indian sufi mystic father and an american mother. Born in Russia, they move to France where she, with her brothers and sister, grow up in a harmonious surrounding. The book talks a great deal about her good manners and discipline, pointing finger to her father's teachings that influenced the young Noor.

The main part of this book covers how she volunteers for the war preparations and becomes the first woman british spy to be recruited for a spy work behind enemy lines. We have read several spy stories so it is somewhat guessable how nerve jaunting work is this having to do it under the enemy's nose. Despite her contacts getting arrested and the circuits getting blown up, she manages to evaded the German Gestapos and continue being a strong communication channel between the resistance group and the British mainland. But eventually, an agent within resistance buckle to the Gestapo's brutality and double crosses her ending up in her capture.

With a tragic end at the Dachau concentration camp, she might have disappeared into oblivion had such attempts, to bring back such little known world war heroes, were not taken up. For that the author needs to be really commended.

This ought to get more than 2 stars. But for its amateurish writing I am compelled not to exceed it. Shrabani Basu was excellent in her research work done to get the info on a spy from several millions whose archives could never be fully recovered. But the way the book is written at times made me cringe. For instance, she happens to be great-great...-granddaughter of Tipu Sultan, and whenever some dramatic moment comes, writer quotes that it is the blood of Tipu sultan that makes her stay strong. Things like that attempts to deviate from reality and gives the personality an unnecessary mythical greatness. Then few things like "attestation" of her brilliance. Like at the end she quotes something like "...Hitler was glad that the dangerous british spy was caught and their radio link sabotaged.." , then about testimonies from chiefs and agents that sounds like a school report card remarks. I think the editing was shoddy in this case. There was a good research material and they couldn't arrange it properly like a normal non-fiction.

This is going to become a movie it seems , they can directly use the book as screenplay!

[Pratibha Suku · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have only one word for spy-"Respect". This is irrespective of the country they belong or the side they are into.

Its hard to write about spy. A serious breach of security it will be to make public their life, even after their death.
Keeping this in mind I find the author had done best on her part. She gave us a glimpse of Noor Inayat Khan. Her courage and will power is something I envy. Even the chilling torture at the hand of Geheime Staatspolizei, abbreviated Gestapo, couldn't break her personal principle-not to lie. Inspiration indeed.
This is a collection of hearsay. Now since this is hearsay, there were lots of fill in the blanks which author had tried to fill up with guesswork. Might had been the need weave up a story but still fiction in biography shouldn't get any place. She seems too passionate of the subject (Noor), kind of emotional attachment something which I feel has brought down the quality of book. She is not so critical of anyone other then the Noor's Boss back in London.

Anyways it was a good attempt.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

13 September 1944, Dachau concentration camp, Germany –

The air was cold as the young women prisoners struggled towards the camp with their bags. The first chilling sight was of the camp’s searchlights, visible from afar. As the beams swept the area, the new arrivals could see the high walls of the camp, and the barbed wire. Built in 1933, it was the first concentration camp to be constructed by Hitler……..

Noor and her colleagues were taken through the main gate of the camp inscribed with the words Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Will Make You Free). The words were ironic because few walked free from Dachau. Over 30,000 people were exterminated here between 1933 and 1945.

As they entered the camp, they could see the line of barracks on their left. Inside, in rows of dirty bunk beds, lay the inmates, crammed like cattle, half starved and thinly clad, inhabiting a world somewhere between the living and the dead. Along the side of the barracks ran the electric fences covered with barbed wire and the deep trench which prisoners were warned not to cross. Further down was the crematorium.

Outside it stood a single post with an iron hook. Here the Gestapo hanged their prisoners, often stringing them up from meat hooks with piano wire and leaving them to die slowly….

The four young women were taken to the main registration office and then led to their cells where they were locked up separately. In the early hours of the morning, the SS guards dragged Madeleine Damerment, Eliane Plewman and Yolande Beekman from their cells, marched them past the barracks to the crematorium and shot them through the back of their necks.

For Noor, it was to be a long night. As the prisoner who had been labelled ‘highly dangerous’, she was singled out for further torture. The Germans entered her cell, slapped her brutally and called her names. Then they stripped her. Once again she bore it silently. All through the night they kicked her with their thick leather boots, savaging her frail body. As dawn broke over the death camp, Noor lay on the floor battered and bleeding but still defiant. An SS soldier ordered her to kneel and pushed his pistol against her head.

‘Liberté!’ shouted Noor, as he shot her at point blank range. Her weak and fragile body crumpled on the floor. She was only thirty.

Biographies on Noor Inayat Khan from over the years indicate how some have interpreted her life story and iconic image.

In the first of these, which is entitled Madeleine and was published approximately a decade after her death, Jean Overton Fuller—who was Noor’s personal friend—writes that six of the seven publishing companies to which she had submitted her biography discarded it because of its divided appeal, on the one hand to readers interested in the Indian background of “the Sufi Princess” and on the other those accustomed to her life as “heroine of the Resistance.”

The book enjoyed reasonable success and was reprinted in 1971, with additional material on Noor’s Sufi heritage and on her ancestors, a topic that captured the interest of Mr. Wite Carp, the publisher of East-West Publications, as well as more information on her wartime activities that had come to light since 1952.

Fuller’s study thus differs from others by showing similarities between Noor’s life experiences, a brief glimpse of her literary works, and her role during the war.

This biography, by Shrabani Basu, draws from materials covered by Fuller as well as from interviews with Noor’s relatives and data from her SOE personal files, which became accessible in 2003.

Basu’s book has been divided into ten chapters:

1) Babuli
2) Fazal Manzil
3) Three Flight and Fight
4) Setting Europe Ablaze
5) Codes and Cover Stories
6) Leaving England
7) Joining the Circuit
8) The Fall of Prosper
9) Poste Madeleine
10) Prisoner of the Gestapo

As one of the first women to be penetrated into Nazi-occupied France by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) after the closing stages of the war, Noor Inayat Khan received posthumous praises from both France and Great Britain for making the definitive sacrifice as a heroic résistante.

Since then her contributions have by no means been forgotten, and the expansion of interest in her military career extends to recent literature and film about her.

Noor sacrificed her life to serve the country which had sheltered her family. She remained factual to her beliefs even when inhumanly tortured by the Nazis, never lying and never informing on others.

Radio operators were not expected to survive more than a few weeks, yet she not only carried on for four months, but did the work of about six operators at a time when the Germans were vigorously pursuing her.

History is unsure of who deceived Noor. Some consider that it may have been Renée Garry, Henri Garry’s sister, who was envious of Noor and of her camaraderie with Antelme, but Renée was found not culpable in a trial held after the war.

Noor may have been betrayed by another agent, either a double agent working both for the SOE and the Nazis, or even a fellow agent who revealed her identity under torment.

Of the agents mentioned in this account, only Marguerite Garry, Viennot, Gieules, Germaine Aigrain, Professor Balachowsky and John Starr survived the war.

The rest were all killed by the Nazis, most of them, like Noor, in concentration camps.

Himmler, Hitler’s right-hand man, ordered that all secret agents should be executed, but only after they had been tortured into illuminating every fragment of information that would facilitate the Germans to arrest other agents.

Noor became a prolific writer during the years leading up to her premature death at age thirty, and her personal communication indicates that writing was a foremost part of her life regardless of the many privations she endured during that time.

In her Introduction, Basu writes: “Noor was an international person: Indian, French and British at the same time. However, she is better known in France than in Britain or India. In France she is a heroine. They know her as Madeleine of the Resistance and every year a military band plays outside her childhood home on Bastille Day. A square in Suresnes has been named Cours Madeleine after her.

She has inspired a best-selling novel La Princesse Oubliée (The Forgotten Princess) by Laurent Joffrin, which has also been translated into German. Joffrin has given her lovers she did not have and taken her through paths she did not walk; it is a work of fiction.

Sixty years after the war, Noor’s vision and courage are inspirational. I hope my book brings the story of Noor Inayat Khan to a new generation for whom the sacrifices made for freedom are already becoming a footnote in history…”

After Noor’s death, in acknowledgment of her courage, her faithfulness and her strength of will, the British awarded her the George Cross. The French, too, conferred on her the highest civilian award: the Croix de Guerre with Gold Star.

In Gordon Square, London, close to the house where she lived in 1914, a statue of Noor has been erected in memory of her life and her contribution to Britain.

A most recommended book.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

‘Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan’ by Shrabani Basu aims to celebrate the amazing bravery of an undercover operative in occupied Europe. If you are of the right age to remember the TV series ‘Allo Allo’ you probably share the national idea that working with the resistance was all about running around with captured airmen looking for a way to smuggle the ‘Madonna with the Big Boobies’ out of the country whilst avoiding the attention of a leather coated Gestapo man. ‘Spy Princess’ shows a much more dangerous and entirely unamusing picture of how things really were. It’s clear that the author is somewhat in awe of her subject and keen to ensure that this undercover heroine is brought out from the secret files and into public view.

Noor was an unlikely candidate for life as a spy. She was born in Moscow on New Year’s Day 1914 to an Indian father and an American mother. Her father was the leader of a group of Sufi Muslims and he travelled around Europe with his family building a following for his beliefs and his philosophy. Sufis are opposed to violence and her father was a supporter of Gandhi’s principles of peaceful protest. Whilst the family were not exactly well-to-do, they had many wealthy and influential friends. Noor loved to write poetry, play music and write children’s stories and she studied for qualifications in child psychology at a Paris university before the dangers of a German advance became apparent and the family fled to England. Noor had no particular reason to support the British in the war and even in her interview with the SOE she admitted that after the war she planned to return to India and campaign for her homeland’s independence.

A small, feisty woman, Noor lacked the physical strength that might have been desirable in a spy but she was intelligent, good at puzzles, had a fine memory and impressed her interviewers by wearing a complex patterned jumper to her interview. Apparently being able to knit such items was taken by the SEO as a sign that a potential recruit could handle complex patterns. The book tells us that “Women were considered to be skilled wireless operators because they were good at knitting and could master keying better than men”.

Basu’s book tells us about Noor’s childhood and early life and about the family’s move to England and her recruitment to the SOE. There’s a lot of detail about the training that SOE operatives were put through – to be honest, rather more detail than I could really summon enough interest to follow fully. There were some things I found fascinating – such as the way the operators were given the clothes of people who had fled the country they would visit or had been sewn in the right style by tailors from those countries. When Noor first gets to France we are told how she’s chastised for putting milk into the cup before pouring her tea because to do so is such a giveaway of British ways that it could blow their cover. In these earlier chapters, I found her a times rather too ‘wet’ to really be intersting although a book review is not about judging the subject of a biography, only the way in which she’s been ‘written’. I’m not convinced that Basu gave us a very convincing potential spy with her descriptions.

Once Noor gets to Paris the book changes greatly and became – for me anyway - a lot more interesting. At the time she was sent to France the average life expectancy of an undercover wireless operator was just a few weeks and radio operators had the highest casualty rates of any employees with the SOE because the Germans were always tracking their signals, hunting them down and the only way to survive was by moving frequently to avoid detection. Despite weighing no more than 8 stone, she carried her wireless equipment in a suitcase weighing 30 pounds, climbed trees and leapt onto rooftops to place her radio aerial and ensure a good signal. Within a short time of arriving, Noor – undercover as Jeanne-Marie Renier, a children’s nurse, code name ‘Madeleine – finds herself the only survivor of the spy ring in which she worked. Betrayal, capture, attempted escape and eventual torture and death are all covered. It’s no ‘spoiler’ to say she meets a gory end as it’s well documented that she was shot in Dachau – indeed inscribed on her monument and told to us in the opening pages of the book - but the route from mild-mannered Indian writer of children’s stories to brave and determined spy is an interesting one.

There is no doubt that Noor was a remarkable woman but sadly I cannot give this book a resounding cheer because I found the style in which it was written deeply irritating. If I’m reading an historical biography then there are two types I find acceptable; those where everything is researched to the nth degree with 80 pages of bibliography and indices and those where the historical account is presented in novel format without any attempt to provide footnotes and the like. What Basu has written is somewhere uncomfortably in between. Yes, there are many pages of references and sources at the end but the style is not compatible with rigorous research and attention to fact.

Take these two sentences from the prologue:

“Her hands and feet chained together, classified as a ‘very dangerous prisoner’, Noor Inayat Khan stared defiantly at her German captors. Her dark eyes flashed at them as they tried to break her resistance”

And

“She called out silently to Abba to give her strength”.

So what’s my point? If this is historical biography where’s the proof that ‘her dark eyes flashed’ or ‘she stared defiantly’? Who knows what she may or may have called out to her father in her mind because it sure as hell isn’t written down anywhere? Simply the answer is nobody knows and this ‘sexing up’ of historical biogs to give them a bit more dramatic impact is something I find unacceptable. Either go the whole hog and write it as a fictionalised account of a real life, or stick to what can be historically proven and has been documented. Don’t guess at what Noor was feeling unless you’ve got it written down in black and white or unless you have first hand accounts of what was said and done.

I’m not doubting that Basu did her homework and she must have spent many months researching the records of the SOE and speaking with people who knew Noor. My objection is to the cheap novelistic dramatics. What we get throughout the book is fact ‘dressed up’ in a more novelistic style. Some may love it but it really annoyed me.

On the plus side, there were some lovely surprises including a list of all the agents and Resistance members who worked with Noor with details of what happened to them (most of it nasty). My favourite of the appendices is the list of Indians who were given the Victoria Cross or George Cross for their actions in the war. Each of these has a few lines about what these brave men and women did to earn their honours. I’d be more than interested to read an entire book of their stories – but preferably not one written by this author.

[Nick Guzan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A talented and gentle renaissance woman best known for her courageous and ultimately tragic exploits as an Allied spy for the SOE, Noor Inayat Khan received long-due attention through Shrabani Basu’s comprehensive biography, a thoughtfully written tribute to a beautiful person as well as her family, her philosophy, and her life.

(The astrology nerd in me was particularly tickled by Basu’s inclusion of Noor’s full birth date and time as the dreamy and determined, shy and sensitive, and fragile yet fearless Noor certainly fits with being a Capricorn sun, Pisces moon, and Virgo rising.)

[Ankur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have mixed feelings about this book. The subject is very interesting and in parts it's so intense and inspiring. However my progress became sluggish when the author pours in all the details about the complex prosper network with its numerous sub networks. The tone of the book also changes from mystical while describing her sufi upbringing to very technical during the espionage phase. It gave me a perspective on Indian contribution to the allied resistance which I did not have.

[Humaira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting account about a little known woman who made such a massive difference.

[pratyusha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book makes quite a laudable attempt at piecing the patchy evidence together to understand the war effort from the perspective of women SOE agents. But some aspects are overwhelmingly inadequate. Apart from amateurish and repetitive writing, Noor's mixed ancestry was exoticised and she was infantalized throughout the book. Further, her royal ancestry was romanticised and at times projected as some sort of anti-colonial assertion (not a surprise given the author's savarna Indian diaspora background, it's kind of their thing). Several questionable facets of Inayat Khan (Noor's father)'s behaviour were either ignored or easily excused citing his sufi beliefs (trying to marry off your pre-teen daughter to a wealthy relative to fund your cult was not very sufi of him, and neither was practising his musical instruments for the majority of time while his kids starved). The author readily labels him a liberal for marrying an American woman but justifies his actions when he didn't allow his daughters(practically children then) interact with male children alluding to the household being "royal", "sufi" and hence "orthodox". Here's hoping that the next biographer takes an actual critical look at her unusual upbringing and doesn't attribute her success (which is clearly her own) to people who preach and try to leech off their kids.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a competent biography of a really remarkable woman. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about Noor Khan, an SOE agent and the first woman to be sent into occupied France, who was executed at Dachau after being imprisoned for a year and not revealing anything under extensive interrogation. But while Spy Princess certainly has value in filling in the gaps left by other biographers, it does occasionally beatify Noor at the expense of other women (what does Shrabani Basu have against Mata Hari, my god) and fall victim to making very generic statements about Noor's life when there isn't documented information (i.e., a page-long description of the global advancement of WWII followed by a lazy statement like 'Noor was worried about this'). Still, Basu does an impressive job at chronicling Noor's life and contextualizing her legacy.

[Nora · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazingly brave woman, and this is such a sad story. Very well researched and really makes the heroic events of SOE come alive.

[Gok · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing true story this is. Noor was a Special Operation Executive (SOE) agent that went into France during WW2 as radio operator to send message back to Britain. It was highly risky and cost her her life by capture by the Gestapo, but never gave them any information after being tortured, and made several escape attempts. She had multiple chances to return to Britain at the request of her senior authorities but refused and stayed in France as the only operator, and saved many agents and arranged their return back to Britain.

The story is heartwarming about her childhood with her family in France, but also tells the family story of her father leaving India and travelling across the Atlantic, meeting her mother, and eventually settling in Russia, when Noor was born. The family then move to France and this is where Noor grew up, but eventually moved to Britain during the Nazi occupation of France.

This is when Noor signs up to the SOE and becomes an agent in the war effort. The story is like a tv spy thriller and keeps you in an intense and suspense read. I’m sure the fictional books/shows is based on this type of true story.

I couldn’t put the book down, and read on emotionally to the end. I highly recommend a read if you like WW2 true stories, or stories about heroism. This sort of bravery should be heard by all. 🙏🏻

[Dev · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was definitely going a bit outside my comfort zone with this book because I almost never read books that are biographies of a single person but I decided to give this one a try. Definitely an informative book and well organized so I think this could easily be a 4 or 5 star read for many people, but I am unfortunately cursed with a short attention span so I found myself getting sidetracked a lot. I'm definitely more of a '50 nice condensed 5 minute biographies in a single book' kind of person but I'm still glad I read this and I also learned a lot of interesting things about spy programs during WW2 in addition to Noor's life.

[Swasti · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was finally able to finish reading this book. I loved it! It was very detailed and it gives the reader a good insight in Noor's life and even how she felt in the most difficult of circumstances. I have a great amount of respect for her and the level of bravery she's shown in her short life. More people should know Noor's story.

[Jennifer Mangler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't a great biography, really, but I would still recommend it because Noor Inayat Khan is fascinating and I want everyone to know about her. Her dedication, intelligence, and bravery are an inspiration.

[Tracy Smyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew part of this story before reading this book. But that said the book was still a very interesting read. The torture these women & men went through was horrendous

[Vivek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hooter: The Sufi princess who braved it out for her ideals and principles

Noor Inayat Khan probably isn't your standard spy based on her physical description but the heart and intent she showed has no truer patriot to humankind if not to her country of choice, country of love and country of descent - yes, she had multiple roots which she cherished.

The book provides us some insight into the fortitude she showed through her entire journey and to know that she lost her life so close to freedom adds a ring of tragedy to this true story that bears heavy. While the writing may not really capture all the emotions and the drama , the story at its heart surely does.

[VaidReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished!
An extraordinary tale with a tragic ending!
Noor, our Spy Princess, a descendant of the legendary Tipu Sultan, was born in Moscow to an American mother (Ora Ray aka Amina Begum) and and an Indian Sufi Father (Inayat Khan). Her personality is as unique as her family history and upbringing.
This book talks about her journey as a child and eventually as a first woman radio operator in the German occupied Paris as a spy. The story is compelling, tragic and heart wrenching and it'll leave you in pieces as it did to me.
As far as the writing goes, I would have preferred a more narrative storytelling rather than a thesis type writing. The writing felt a little dry at times. Having said that, because of this book, I got introduced to this incredible personality and for that I am grateful to the author, Shrabani Basu.
Noor/ Nora/ Madeline will forever have a special place in my heart. A big salute and hats off to her bravery and valour.

[Soumitra Ghosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very vivid description of life & times of Noor Innayat Khan. A perfect pen portrait.
However details of training could have been avoided nevertheless enjoyed reading it.

[Steve Merrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering the importance of Noor Inayat Khans single handed radio transmissions from occupied Paris, her two escape attempts from avenue fosche Gestapo HQ, her bravery in the face of torture and failure to tell the interrogators a damn thing, her death after many many months of abuse in a concentration camp,and her final words after being raped and brutalized by a Nazi for an entire night, after all that she said "LIBERTE." Then this children's book author and hero died.....

Too much was taken for granted by the writer here, it was assumed that you would understand the dynamics of Sufism, and the operations of the gestapo in hunting down one single lone woman with a radio and a bicycle. Listen she played cat and mouse with them for two and a half months and would have evaded them till D-DAY if she hadn't been betrayed by a jealous sister in the resistance. Of the heroine I am proud but cannot help but feel she deserves a much better book in her name.

Considering the dearth of quasi literature that abounds about the resistance and the war against fascism, this book is really worth reading but only for Noor, the book has many fine moments but somehow its as if the writer runs away from the reality of her imprisonment as a night and fog prisoner of the reich. (Note, The night and fog was an order from Hitler to erase any sign of certain types of resistant agents and commandos from the face of the earth, the idea no matter how sickening was to disappear that person so nobody would ever know what happened to them.) Noor Inayat Khan was one such prisoner. I feel that the realities of the Getsapo must have alienated the writer and I cannot blame her but with the best will in the the world this is a near miss of a book.

Worth reading but disatisfying.......... Probably a lot like life is some times.....

[Kriegslok · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the biography of an extraordinary woman. Born in Moscow of an Indian father, American mother and raised in the pacifistic Sufi Islamic tradition in France Noor Inayat Kahn's life was fascinating enough before she became a refugee in England from the Nazi onslaught across Europe. Taking England as her adoptive home Noor struggled with her pacifist convictions and pursued her desire to join the struggle of her adoptive country against a commin enemy of humanity. The first half or so of the book deals with Noor's biography, her upbringing and her journeys that help to build a picture of the life experiences that led her to her selfless sacrifice. Joining the WAAF to help the war effort Noor was talent spotted by SOE and trained as a radio operator to be infiltrated into occupied Europe, in her case France, about the most dangerous undecover job going. Despite the blundering incompetence of SOE in England (including the unforgiveable compromising of agents in the field by high ranking British based contorllers), the failure of her superiors to take her warnings seriously and the betrayals suffered by SOE in France Noor managed to be a highly effective one woman show for a number of months, saving the lives of downed British air crews and SOE agents. Captured as a result of SOEs blunders Noor was murdered by the Nazis in Dachau. Basu has produced a worthy account or this young Muslim woman's extrordinary and tragically short life. A moving read.

[Belinda Carvalho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Totally fascinating life but the biography while well researched has dated quite badly and never quite got under the surface of Noor Inayat Khan. I'd still recommend reading it as she is so interesting.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

The biography of Noor Inayat Khan, this was a revelation to me. Noor was the first woman radio operator parachuted into France to work with the SOE operatives around Paris. She spent almost 4 months sending critical radio messages back to London for a large number of operatives before she was betrayed and captured by the Gestapo the day before she was due to fly back to England. Noor was executed at Dachau only a few months before it was reached by the allies.

This is a really moving story of a woman determined to assist the war effort in the best way she can, no matter the risk to herself. It says something about the strength of spirit and sheer will of both her and the other men and women who agreed to risk their lives in occupied France in order to bring the downfall of the Nazi regime.

The statistics as to the rate of survival are shocking, I really learned something about a group of people whose story is, in my opinion, not shouted loud enough.

[MisterLiberry Head · Rating 4 out of 5]

On Nov. 8, 2012 in London, Princess Anne unveiled Britain's first memorial to an Asian woman, honoring the incredibly brave wartime service of one of the Special Operations Executive's most heroic and mysterious wireless operators. The bust is of Noor Inayat Khan (codename: "Madeleine"), who was murdered in Dachau after her capture by the Nazis. But the even more amazing part of her story is well-told in this book. She was an Indian princess, a gifted harpist, a Sufi who wrote Buddhist fables for children, and a great-great-great granddaughter of the Tipu Sultan. She made her place in history as a spy--but, as a Sufi, she refused ever to tell a lie.

Fascinating B&W illustrations in this biography, and a natural narrative extension of codemaster Leo Marks's impressions of Noor in his BETWEEN SILK AND CYANIDE.