Book description
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.
