John Thieme
All in the Same Boat
Sea of Poppies
By Amitav Ghosh
John Murray 470pp £18.99
All of Amitav Ghosh’s writing to date has traced connections across cultures. Sea of Poppies, the first part of what promises to be the great trilogy of Empire as seen from the vantage point of characters who, for the most part, were exploited by its transactions, is no exception. The novel is set during the period when the economy of Bengal and the poppy fields along the banks of the Ganges were dominated by the East India Company’s monopoly of trade in Indian-grown opium, and there are hints of the wars of the South China Seas to come. But this is only part of the book’s rich tapestry. The human story of this aspect of imperial commerce is intertwined with that of another tangled and shameful chapter in British history. The novel takes place at the moment in the late 1830s when, shortly after Emancipation, the plantations of the Caribbean, Mauritius and Fiji needed a new labour force and the system of indentureship came into being, with ‘coolies’ signing ‘girmits’ (agreements) to cross the black waters. In so doing, they lost both caste and many of the certitudes of their former lives; but at the same time, the novel suggests, they brought new diasporic communities into being. Ghosh shows these beginning to take shape during the first part of their voyage to their new lives.
Two of the novel’s three sections depict the routes by which a varied cast of characters come to be migrants on, appropriately, a former slaving-ship, the Ibis, which will take them to Mareech-dip (Mauritius) along with its motley crew and two convicts who are being transported to the island’s penal
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Are iPhones ruining children's lives? A prominent American psychologist thinks so.
@tiffanyjenkins is not so sure:
Tiffany Jenkins - The Smartphone Pandemic
Tiffany Jenkins: The Smartphone Pandemic - The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an...
literaryreview.co.uk
India's 'festival of democracy', or general election, begins next month. Like every good festival, it looks likely to have its fair share of murders and arrests.
@OwenBennettJon probes the state of democracy in India:
Owen Bennett-Jones - New Delhi Confidential
Owen Bennett-Jones: New Delhi Confidential - The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India by Alpa Shah
literaryreview.co.uk
Where is the world's newest narcostate and why is it thriving?
@AdamBrookesWord investigates Asia's meth mecca.
Adam Brookes - Meth Comes to Myanmar
Adam Brookes: Meth Comes to Myanmar - Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Outwitted the CIA by Patrick Winn
literaryreview.co.uk