At the heart of this vibrant saga is an immense ship, the Ibis. Its
destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its purpose to
fight China's vicious nineteenth-century Opium Wars. As for the crew,
they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts.
In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a diverse cast
of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed
tribeswoman, from a mulatto American freedman to a free-spirited French
orphan. 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
embraces the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling high seas, and
the crowded backstreets of Canton. But it is the panorama of characters,
whose diaspora encapsulates the vexed colonial history of the East
itself, that makes Sea of Poppies so breathtakingly alive - a
masterpiece from one of the world's finest novelists. Such is the power
of Ghosh's precise, understated prose that one occasionally wishes to
turn the pages three at a time, eager to find out where Ghosh's tale is
headed. - The Boston Globe
