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Past and present collide in a novel about a girl who might just be a "case of the reincarnation type."
Varsha Gupta wants fish for lunch. Her family is shocked; the three-year-old has never tasted fish in her life. The Guptas are strict vegetarians and don't allow it inside their Calcutta mansion. But Varsha claims she can remember another life, in a mud house by a river where she caught and cooked fish with a different mother.
Perplexed, the Guptas turn to Dr. Shoma Bose, a psychologist who has been investigating what are known as "cases of the reincarnation type" for years. But her understanding of the world is changed forever by Varsha's revelations.
Half a century later, Varsha's case file catches the attention of a group of environmental activists, and Shoma's nephew Dinu is drawn inexorably into their plans. As Dinu finds himself caught up in the search for Varsha, buried memories of his own past begin to surface.
Traveling between late 1960s Calcutta and present-day Brooklyn, Amitav Ghosh's Ghost-Eye is an urgent and expansive novel from one of our greatest living storytellers, about family, fate, and our fragile planet.
"Though the novel's tonal shifts, from arch to optimistic to somber, can feel a bit haphazard, Ghosh adeptly toggles between the central mysteries in both timelines, and he ushers them to surprising conclusions. It's an impressive feat." —Publishers Weekly
"Ghosh's fluent novel is rich in its detailed knowledge...Ghosh's vision of environmental action taken by ordinary people against corporations is inspiring...Irresistibly readable." —Kirkus Reviews
"A thoroughly gratifying return to the full-form novel...Always an exceptional storyteller, [Ghosh] brilliantly combines what can be touched and seen with the documented otherworldly...Ghosh gifts a magnificent story ready to be believed, appreciated, and celebrated." —Shelf Awareness
"With swathes of history and science, humor under pressure, mysterious forces, and stunning revelations, Ghosh's provocative tale cues us to the wonders of the planet and spurs us to protest the mad greed and malfeasance fueling the climate crisis." ―Booklist
"Amitav Ghosh has done more than any novelist to reimagine the role of fiction in our age of environmental emergency. In Ghost-Eye, he draws the reader from the world we know into a shadow realm of reincarnation and levitation, of talking trees and whispering spirits. Mournful and exhilarating, Ghost-Eye insists that, as its narrator says, 'In order to save the world, we have to remind ourselves of the old ways.'" ―Nathaniel Rich, author of Cloudthief and Losing Earth
"Ghost-Eye is a marvel that will ignite a reader's sense of wonder—a masterful novel, at once simple and capacious. Ghosh is one of our finest writers." —Rabih Alameddine, National Book Award–winning author of The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
This information about Ghost-Eye was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Amitav Ghosh is the author of the bestselling Ibis Trilogy, composed of Sea of Poppies (short-listed for the Man Booker Prize), River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire. His other novels include The Circle of Reason, which won the Prix Médicis étranger, and The Glass Palace. He is also the author of many works of nonfiction, including The Great Derangement, The Nutmeg's Curse, and Smoke and Ashes. In 2018, Ghosh became the first English-language writer to win the Jnanpith Award, India's highest literary honor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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