Sea of Poppies is a stunningly vibrant and intensely human work that confirms Amitav Ghoshs reputation as a master storyteller. At the heart of this epic saga is a vast ship the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean to the Mauritius Islands. As to the people on board they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways coolies and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval in the mid-nineteenth century fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed village-woman from a mulatto American freedman to a free-spirited European orphan. As they sail down the Hooghly and into the sea their old family ties are washed away and they view themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship-brothers who will build whole new lives for themselves in the remote islands where they are being taken. It is the beginning of an unlikely dynasty.
