Sea Of Poppies Bfmt

Ghosh, Amitav

£9.99

The background to this historical adventure is the Opium Wars. The story revolves around the Ibis, an old slaving-ship voyaging across the Indian Ocean, its crew made up of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts, representing Westerners and Indians respectively. Slowly they start considering themselves as ship-brothers.

In stock

Publish Date: 16/04/2009

Description

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008

Sea of Poppies boasts a varied collection of characters to love and hate, and provides wonderfully detailed descriptions . . . utterly involving and piles on tension until the very last page’ Sunday Times

At the heart of this epic saga, set just before the Opium Wars, is an old slaving-ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its crew a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts.

In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed villager, from an evangelical English opium trader to a mulatto American freedman. As their old family ties are washed away they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-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, and the exotic backstreets of China. But it is the panorama of characters, whose diaspora encapsulates the vexed colonial history of the East itself, which makes Sea of Poppies so breathtakingly alive – a masterpiece from one of the world’s finest novelists.

Additional information

Weight 387 g
Dimensions 196 × 132 × 34 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

533

Language

English

Edition

1st paperback ed

Dewey

823.92 (edition:22)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K