Showing Books By Author : Amitav Ghosh

Wild Fictions Essays

'We owe a great debt to Ghosh's brilliant mind, avenging pen and huge soul' --- Naomi Klein 'Urgent, beautiful and far-reaching . . . it should be essential reading' --- The Times Literary Supplement on The Nutmeg's Curse 'Consistently stimulating' --- The Guardian on The Great Derangement 'He has surpassed many historians in his ability to synthesize a wealth of research with remarkable intellectual clarity' --- The Times on Smoke and Ashes

The Hungry Tide

The Hungry Tide is a rich, exotic saga set in Calcutta and in the vast archipelago of islands in the Bay of Bengal. An Indian myth says that when the river Ganges first descended from the heavens, the force of the cascade was so great that the earth would have been destroyed if it had not been for the god Shiva, who tamed the torrent by catching it in his dreadlocks. It is only when the Ganges approaches the Bay of Bengal that it frees itself and separates into thousands of wandering strands. The result is the Sundarbans, an immense stretch of mangrove forest, a half-drowned land where the waters of the Himalayas merge with the incoming tides of the sea. It is this vast archipelago of islands that provides the setting for Amitav Ghosh’s new novel. In the Sundarbans the tides reach more than 100 miles inland and every day thousands of hectares of forest disappear only to re-emerge hours later. Dense as the mangrove forests are, from a human point of view it is only a little less barren than a desert. There is a terrible, vengeful beauty here, a place teeming with crocodiles, snakes, sharks and man-eating tigers. This is the only place on earth where man is more often prey than predator. And it is into this terrain that an eccentric, wealthy Scotsman named Daniel Hamilton tried to create a utopian society, of all races and religions and conquer the might of the Sundarbans. In January 2001, a small ship arrives to conduct an ecological survey of this vast but little-known environment and the scientists on board begin to trace the journeys of the descendants of this society.

The Hungry Tide (द हंग्री टाइड)

हंग्री टाइड ही कलकत्ता आणि बंगालच्या उपसागरातील बेटांच्या विशाल द्वीपसमूहातील एक समृद्ध गाथा आहे. बेटांचा हा विशाल द्वीपसमूहच अमिताव घोष यांच्या नवीन कादंबरीची मांडणी करतो. सुंदरबनमध्ये समुद्राच्या भरती १०० मैलांपेक्षा जास्त अंतरापर्यंत पोहोचतात आणि दररोज हजारो हेक्टर जंगल नाहीसे होते आणि काही तासांनंतर पुन्हा उगवते. याच पार्श्वभूमीवर दुर्मीळ डॉल्फिनच्या शोधात आलेली पियाली, तिला डॉल्फिन शोधण्यात सहाय्यक ठरणारा फोकीर, कनाई या प्रमुख पात्रांभोवती फिरणारी ही कादंबरी घडते.खारफुटीच्या जंगलातली समृद्ध जलसंपदा, वाघोबाच्या भीतीनं आदिवासी जीवनात उदयाला आलेल्या लोककथा आणि जंगल भयाचं आव्हान पेलतही निसर्गावर मनमुराद प्रेम करणाऱ्या माणसांची ही गोष्ट आहे. जी सुंदरबनच्या जंगलातून अनहद प्रवास घडवते.

Smoke And Ashes

Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir and an excursion into history, both economic and cultural. Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India and China, as well as on the world at large. Engineered by the British Empire, which exported opium from India to sell in China, the trade and its revenues were essential to the Empire's survival. Upon deeper exploration, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world's biggest corporations, several of America's most powerful families and institutions, and contemporary globalism itself. In India the long-term consequences were even more profound. Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, Smoke and Ashes reveals the pivotal role one small plant has played in the making of the world as we know it - a world that is now teetering on the edge of catastrophe.

Ways Of Dying Stories And Essays

One of the meanings of the word ‘olio’ is ‘a miscellany’. The books in the Aleph Olio series contain a mélange of the best writing to be had on a variety of themes, and present aspects of India and Indian life in ways that have seldom been seen before. Ways of Dying comprises stories and essays of deep insight into an inevitable part of life—death. The pieces in the book include Amitav Ghosh on the assassination of Indira Gandhi and its aftermath, Ruskin Bond on memories of his father’s funeral, Amitava Kumar on how it is necessary to find comfort and solace in the midst of profound grief, Mahasweta Devi on murder and revenge in rural India, and Atul Gawande on assisted suicide and what doctors fear the most when faced with the mortality of their patients. Elsewhere in the anthology, the reader will find one of Munshi Premchand’s greatest stories, ‘The Shroud’, a peerless meditation on the hypocrisies and feigned grief of dysfunctional families on the death of a family member, balanced by Khushwant Singh’s poignant essay on the death of his beloved grandmother. Rounding out the selection are George Orwell on the complex reasons that often lead to innocent blood being shed, David Davidar on the sadness and turmoil that whirls through a family upon the death of a patriarch, and Kolakaluri Enoch on the tragic death of a young girl.

Sea Of Poppies (सी ऑफ पॉपीस)

Gun Island

Bundook. Gun. A common word, but one which turns Deen Datta's world upside down. A dealer of rare books, Deen is used to a quiet life spent indoors, but as his once-solid beliefs begin to shift, he is forced to set out on an extraordinary journey; one that takes him from India to Los Angeles and Venice via a tangled route through the memories and experiences of those he meets along the way. There is Piya, a fellow Bengali-American who sets his journey in motion; Tipu, an entrepreneurial young man who opens Deen's eyes to the realities of growing up in today's world; Rafi, with his desperate attempt to help someone in need; and Cinta, an old friend who provides the missing link in the story they are all a part of. It is a journey which will upend everything he thought he knew about himself, about the Bengali legends of his childhood and about the world around him. Gun Island is a beautifully realised novel which effortlessly spans space and time. It is the story of a world on the brink, of increasing displacement and unstoppable transition. But it is also a story of hope, of a man whose faith in the world and the future is restored by two remarkable women.

The Great Derangement

Flood Of Fire

The grand finale of the IBIS trilogy - the year's most anticipated novel. One of the masterpieces of twenty-first-century fiction' - Literary review / It is 1839. The British, whose opium exports to China have been blockaded by Beijing, are planning an invasion to force China's hand. Their demands - an island base on the Chinese coast from which to continue their trade and a princely sum in compensation for their losses. In Calcutta, Zachary Reid, an impoverished young sailor, dreams of his lost love and of a way to make his fortunes. His chance comes when the wealthy opium merchant Mr. Burnham gives him a job of a lifetime even as his wife provides Zachary with other allures. Heading towards Calcutta is Havildar Kesri with his captain, Neville Mee, to lead a regiment of Indian volunteers in the upcoming war. Alert, battle-hardened, Kesri must turn his ragged, ill-equipped band of men, who know nothing about either China or sailing, into an efficient machine if they are to emerge out of this doomed expedition. In Mumbai, Shireen Modi waits anxiously for news of her opium trader husband only to discover that he has died mysteriously in Hong Kong and lost all his fortune in the opium blockade. She must sail alone to China as war clouds loom to reclaim his wealth and reputation and in risking everything find a new life for herself again. In Canton, Neel becomes an aide and translator to a senior Chinese official as Beijing begins to prepare for war with Britain. The more he sees, the more worried he becomes - for the Chinese have neither the ships nor the artillery to match the British in modern warfare. The future seems clear but do the Chinese know it? Fusing a profound understanding of history with page-turning narration, Flood of Fire - the final part of the Ibis Trilogy - is nothing short of a masterpiece. This is Amitav Ghosh writing at the height of his powers.

River of Smoke

An absolute masterpiece of twenty-first century literature from the master storyteller In 1838, the Ibis, carrying a cargo of convicts and labourers, falls victim to a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal. Among the survivors are Neel, a pampered raja charged with embezzlement; Paulette, a French orphan masquerading as a deck-hand; and Deeti, a widowed poppy grower fleeing India with her lover. Also caught in the storm is Anahita, owned by the wealthy Parsi merchant Bahram Modi, which holds the largest consignment of opium ever to leave India. And the Redruth, which carries Frederick Penrose, a horticulturist determined to track down China's rare and priceless plants. They will all converge in Canton, on the edge of China, as the Opium War begins to rage.

The Circle Of Reason

Following the form of the raga in Indian classical music, Amitav Ghosh slowly builds the tempo of The Circle of Reason. The first part spans several decades, the second unfolds over a few weeks, and the third, like a scherzo, races through a day.Ghosh

The Shadow Lines

As a young boy, Amitav Ghosh

The Calcutta Chromosome

Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of Fevers, Delirium & Discovery In this extraordinary novel, Amitav Ghosh navigates through time and genres to present a unique tale. Beginning at an unspecified time in the future and ranging back to the late nineteenth century, the reader follows the adventures of the enigmatic L. Murugan. An authority on the Nobel prize-winning scientist Sir Ronald Ross, who solved the malaria puzzle in Calcutta in 1898, Murugan is in search of the elusive

CountDown

On 11 May 1998 the Indian government tested five nuclear devices some forty kilometres from Pokaran. Seventeen days later Pakistan tested nuclear devices of its own. About three months after the tests, Amitav Ghosh went to the Pokaran area, after which he visited Kashmir as part of the defence minister's entourage. He also went to the Siachen glacier in the Karakoram mountains where Indian and Pakistani soldiers have been exchanging fire since 1983. Ghosh then travelled through Pakistan and Nepal.Countdown is partly a result of these journeys and conversations with many hundreds of people of the subcontinent. In its descriptions the book is haunting and evocative; and its analyses of the compulsions behind South Asia's nuclearization, and the implications of this, are profound, deeply disturbing and, ultimately, chilling.

The Glass Palace

There was only one person in the food-stall who knew exactly what that sound was that was rolling in across the plain, along the silver curve of the Irrawaddy, to the western wall of Mandalay's fort. Hid name was Rajkumar, and he was and Indian, a boy of twelve - not an authority to be relied upon. The king walked out of the pavilion, flanked by Queen supaylat and her mother. The procession passed slowly throught the long corridors, of the palace, and across the mirrored walls of the hall of Audience, past the shouldered guns of the guard of honour and the snapped off salutes of the English officers. Two carriages were waiting by the east gate. Just as he was about to step in, the King noticed that the ceremonial canopy had seven tires, the number allotted to a nobelman, not the nine due to a king.

Sea Of poppies

The first in Amitav Ghosh