5 Amitav Ghosh novels you must read
Winner of the 54th Jnanpith award, India's highest literary honor, and best known for his work in English fiction, Amitav Ghosh is a household name. His works explore the essence of national and personal identity using intricate narrative tactics. Most of his writings are based on historical locations, particularly around the Indian Ocean. Here is a list of Ghosh's must-read works of fiction.
Ibis trilogy
Set in the early 19th century, the story revolves around the East India Company's opium trade between India and China and the trafficking of coolies to Mauritius. The trilogy comprises Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire. It gets its name from the ship Ibis, which sets sail for Mauritius from Calcutta, but runs into a storm and faces a mutiny.
The Calcutta Chromosome
Sir Ronald Ross, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist, wrote his memoirs in 1923, which Ghosh uses to provide a backdrop for this novel's fictional events. A guy in the future discovers that an ex-colleague has meticulously found a deep secret lying underneath Ross's malaria research—an underground movement that may provide perpetual life—through his study into old records and phone messages.
The Circle of Reason
Alu and his adventure over many years and across continents form the story. Alu's foster father enlists him to join the army. But they are accused of being terrorists, and Alu is forced to flee. He goes to Goa aboard a vessel that illegally transports immigrants, while being chased by a cop. Ghosh received the Prix Medici Etranger Award for this debut novel.
The Glass Palace
The Glass Palace won the Grand Prize for Fiction, Frankfurt International e-Book Awards. Set in 19th century Burma, the story revolves around an Indian boy who falls in love with a palace attendant at a time when the royal family is being forced to leave the palace by British invaders. After several years, unable to forget her, he sets out to find her.
In An Antique Land
In an Antique Land is a beautiful and personal look of Egypt from the Crusades to Operation Desert Storm, full of vivid details. It reveals the indistinguishable and intertwined relationships that unite Hindus, Muslims, and Jews in India and Egypt. Ghosh makes us rethink the political borders that divide the world and the narratives by blending in anthropology, history, fiction, and travel writing.
