"
The Man Who Would Be King" (1888) is a novella by
Rudyard Kipling. It is about two British adventurers in
British India who become kings of
Kafiristan, a remote part of
Afghanistan. The story was inspired by the exploits of
James Brooke, an Englishman who became the first
White Rajah of
Sarawak in
Borneo; and by the travels of American adventurer
Josiah Harlan, who was granted the title Prince of
Ghor in perpetuity for himself and his descendants. It incorporates a number of other factual elements such as locating the story in eastern Afghanistan's
Kafiristan and the European-like appearance of many of Kafiristan's
Nuristani people, and an ending modelled on the return of the head of the explorer
Adolf Schlagintweit to colonial administrators.