In 1986, author Amitav Ghosh's very first book, The Circle of
Reason, won the Prix Medicis Etranger, one of France's top literary
awards. And the world of literature had found a new lodestar.
Ghosh, who graduated from St Stephen's New Delhi and earned a doctorate
in Oxford, began his career as a wordsmith with the Indian
Express, before going on to write essays, fiction, seven major
novels (The Hungry Tide, The Glass Palace, The
Calcutta Chromosome among them) and teach literature both in India
and the US.
The year 2008 sees Ghosh, 52, back with Sea Of Poppies, yet
another historical novel, a genre he specialises in. Poppies is
the first of a trilogy he plans to write and is set around the opium
wars of the early 19th century. Locales switch colourfully and
excitingly between the waving poppy fields located along the Ganga,
furtive backstreets of China and voyages across the seas, and the book
has a large multicultural cast of characters.
In his review of the novel for London's Financial Times, author
William Dalrymple says: 'Amitav Ghosh is a living embodiment of what has
become one of his principal themes: the journeyings and displacements of
the Indian diaspora. Poppies remains a hugely absorbing and
enjoyable book. It is observant, intelligent and passionately written,
and deserves to be placed on the same shelf as such masterpieces of
anti-Imperial fiction as Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda and
Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger.'
Here's your chance to interact with one of the most accomplished writers
of our time, and discuss Sea of Poppies, writing, history, the
Indian Diaspora and more with Ghosh, only on Rediff Chat.
Catch Amitav Ghosh on the Rediff Chat, on Friday, June 20, from 6.15
pm IST.
(Due to circumstances beyond our control, date and time of chat may change).
Photograph courtesy: www.amitavghosh.com
Also read: What to read in 2008
Buy Amitav Ghosh's books on Rediff Shopping
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