author
Martin Louis Alan Gompertz
1886–1951
A British soldier-writer born in India, he brought the landscapes and cultures of Ladakh and Central Asia into adventure stories, travel writing, and speculative fiction. He is often remembered by the pen name “Ganpat,” a nickname that grew out of his service with Indian troops.
1 Audiobook
Harilek : A romance
by Martin Louis Alan Gompertz
About the author
Born on February 23, 1886, and dying on September 29, 1951, Martin Louis Alan Gompertz wrote as Ganpat. Reliable sources describe him as a British soldier and writer born in India, and note that his pen name came from the way his Indian troops pronounced his surname.
His writing seems to have grown directly from his military life and travels. Surviving catalog and bibliographic records link him to adventure fiction such as Harilek and Snow Rubies, as well as travel books including The Road to Lamaland and Magic Ladakh, which suggest a strong interest in the Himalayas, Ladakh, and western Tibet.
That mix of firsthand experience and storytelling gives his work a distinctive flavor: part travel observer, part imperial-era adventurer, and part imaginative novelist. For listeners curious about early 20th-century tales set on the fringes of the Himalayas, his books offer a window into a very particular world.