Click play to listen. Recorded on November 8, 2008.
The internationally acclaimed author of such prize-winning works of fiction and nonfiction as The Glass Palace (2000),The Hungry Tide (2004), and Incendiary Circumstances (2006) discusses his newest novel, Sea of Poppies (2008), an epic, multigenerational account of the 19th-century opium trade and its many consequences set in a stunning array of locales—from the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, through the high seas of the Indian Ocean, to the exotic backstreets of China.
Amitav Ghosh tells of the history of the opium industry in Ghazipur City in Uttar Predesh, India. The world’s largest legal opium factory, started by the British East India Company, is located in the city. Ghosh reads from Sea of Poppies and discusses his writing style, scholarship of primary sources, historical anecdotes, and forgotten lands.
