Review
Packing a wildly varied cast of characters and all of their
stories on board a ship and expecting it to stay afloat through 500 pages seems
a dangerous proposition for a novel. With
Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh
proves it can also be a brilliant one. In a thoroughly enjoyable blend of
historical fiction, comedy of manners, linguistic play, and socio-political
underpinnings, the
Ibis becomes its own sea-borne universe populated by
travelers cut off from the past, trapped and set free all at once by total
isolation.
A fallen Raja; the son of a freed American slave and her white
owner; a French orphan girl disguised as a man and seeking her heritage; the
widow of an opium addict and indentured poppy grower; a mysterious prisoner; and
dozens of others converge on the ship's decks as sailors, servants, laborers,
spiritual seekers, and stowaways....
Beyond the Book
The Ghazipur Opium Factory
For centuries, India was the largest exporter of opium,
accounting for 17-20% of Indian revenues. The export of opium to China began in
the 1780's at the urging of the first governor general of British India, Warren
Hastings, in an attempt to balance trade with China. At the time, China exported
enormous amounts of goods including tea, but imported little from Europe. At first,
there wasn't much demand for the drug, but over the next decade demand increased
exponentially. Indian farmers were effectively forced to replace their crops
with opium poppies, and then sell the resulting harvest back to the British East India Company for a pittance.
