Ghosh is a masterful storyteller and Sea of Poppies is the perfect work that demonstrates the globalizing forces of literary representation. While the novel takes its leisurely time for the principle characters to meet, once the connections are made clearer, the dynamism of the novel is quite apparent. How does one situate this text then? It is not quite a postcolonial text, nor does it traffic within one national frame and the fact that so much takes place literally on the ocean with characters of different national and ethnic origin all make the question of the “melting pot” or in this case, the “melting boat,” a very salient one. He is of course an interesting figure to consider within an Asian Americanist frame, especially because this novel, in particular, does place the United States in a larger economic trajectory in the early 19th century with South Asia, East Asia, and Africa, not simply a transatlantic route, but a truly global one. Ghosh is also author of The Hungry Tide, The Shadow Lines, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Circle of Reason, among other novels. Sea of Poppies was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008. If one were to take the sea-faring tales of Herman Melville, constellate them along an oceanic axes linking India and Mauritius and China, the result might be Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies, which takes place for the most part on a boat (called the Ibis ) commissioned in the export of opium and populated ultimately with coolies, prisoners, stowaways, and shipmates. A Review of Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies

Author of sea of poppies