Synopsis
ASan Francisco ChronicleBest Book of 2008 AChicagoTribuneBest Book of 2008 AWashingtonPostBest Book of 2008 AnEconomistBest Book of 2008 ANew YorkBest Book of 2008 AChristian Science MonitorBest Book of 2008 APublishers WeeklyBest Book of 2008 Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize At the heart of this vibrant saga is a vast ship, theIbis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean; its purpose, to fight China’s vicious nineteenth-century Opium Wars. As for the crew, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt raja to a widowed tribeswoman, from a mulatto American freedman to a freespirited French orphan. As their old family ties are washed away, they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves asjahaj-bhais, or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races, and generations. The vast sweep of this historical adventure spans the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling high seas, the exotic backstreets of Canton. But it is the panorama of characters, whose diaspora encapsulates the vexed colonial history of the East itself, that makesSea of Poppiesso breathtakingly alive—a masterpiece from one of the world’s finest novelists. Amitav Ghosh is the internationally bestselling author of many works of fiction and nonfiction, includingThe Glass Palace, and is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes. Ghosh divides his time between Kolkata and Goa, India, and Brooklyn, New York. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize AnEconomistBest Book of the Year ASan Francisco ChronicleBest Book of the Year AChristian Science MonitorBest Book of the Year APublishers WeeklyBest Book of the Year At the heart of this vibrant story is a vast ship, theIbis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean to fight China’s vicious nineteenth-century Opium Wars. The crew is a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt raja to a widowed tribeswoman, from a mulatto American freedman to a freespirited French orphan. As their old family ties are washed away, they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves asjahaj-bhais, or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races, and generations. This historical adventure spans the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling high seas, the exotic backstreets of Canton. But it is the panorama of characters, whose diaspora encapsulates the vexed colonial history of the East itself, that makesSea of Poppiesso vibrant. "Ghosh's best and most ambitious work yet is an adventure story set in nineteenth-century Calcutta against the backdrop of the Opium Wars. On theIbis, a ship engaged in transporting opium across the Bay of Bengal, varied life stories converge. A fallen raja, a half-Chinese convict, a plucky American sailor, a widowed opium farmer, a transgendered religious visionary are all united by the 'smoky paradise' of the opium seed. Ghosh writes with impeccable control, and with a vivid and sometimes surprising imagination: a woman's tooth protrudes 'like a tilted gravestone'; an opium addict's writhing spasms are akin to 'looking at a pack of rats squirming in a sack'; the body of a young man is 'a smoking crater that had just ri