The writer discusses boiling in his Delhi garret, climate change in the Bay of Bengal and finishing his opium wars trilogy
About 10 years ago Amitav Ghosh began work on a new novel about departures. His experience of moving from India to Britain in the 1970s had been “wrenching” and set him wondering what it was like for Indian people travelling to England in the 19th century. “So I began to write about some characters who might have been among the first people to leave India, and immediately I came up against this immense canvas that lies behind relations between India, Britain and China. It was essentially all about opium and it was clear this was not a story I was going tell in a single book.”
So Ghosh set about writing a fictional account of the period leading up to the first opium war (1839-42), in which UK and China clashed over the British importation of opium, grown on their Indian plantations, into China. Sea of Poppies was published in 2008 and was shortlisted for the Booker prize. It was the first part of what has become the 1,600-page Ibis trilogy, named after the schooner that ferries both opium and human traffic. In 2011 River of Smoke, the second part, was shortlisted for the Man Asian prize and the series culminates this week with the publication of the final volume, Flood of Fire, Ghosh’s eighth novel in a career that has seen his work translated into more than 20 languages. This week his entire body of work was shortlisted for the International Booker prize, which was awarded to László Krasznahorkai.
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So Ghosh set about writing a fictional account of the period leading up to the first opium war (1839-42), in which UK and China clashed over the British importation of opium, grown on their Indian plantations, into China. Sea of Poppies was published in 2008 and was shortlisted for the Booker prize. It was the first part of what has become the 1,600-page Ibis trilogy, named after the schooner that ferries both opium and human traffic. In 2011 River of Smoke, the second part, was shortlisted for the Man Asian prize and the series culminates this week with the publication of the final volume, Flood of Fire, Ghosh’s eighth novel in a career that has seen his work translated into more than 20 languages. This week his entire body of work was shortlisted for the International Booker prize, which was awarded to László Krasznahorkai.
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