At the heart of this epic saga, set just before the Opium Wars, is an old slave 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. As their old family ties are washed away, they come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais, or ship-brothers, and an unlikely dynasty is born which spans continents, races, and generations. This sweeping historical adventure spans the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the high seas, and the exotic backstreets of China, but it is the panorama of characters that brings Sea of Poppies alive. The first in a trilogy, it is a masterpiece from one of the world’s finest novelists.

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"No dull opiate, [this] novel is perfectly addictive. Set in and around Calcutta just before the outbreak of Britain's mid-19th-century Opium Wars with China, the self-assured and nimble Sea of Poppies fuses the best work of Ghosh's substantial career…intricately woven and resolutely entertaining, with escalating action… Sea of Poppies has precisely the scope, complexity and breadth that film cannot adequately address…This elaborate, revelatory novel returns one to the joyous childhood discovery of narrative, with its accretive past, its rich present and its promising future, while simultaneously posing complex, adult questions about how we should live together in a crowded world."
—The Globe and Mail

"The cast is marvelous and the plot majestically serpentine, but the real hero is the English language, which has rarely felt so alive and vibrant."
—Publishers Weekly

"Sea of Poppies remains a hugely absorbing and enjoyable book. It is observant, intelligent and passionately written, and deserves to be placed on the same shelf as such masterpieces of anti-Imperial fiction as Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda and Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger . Like the opium that forms its subject, the narrative becomes increasingly addictive as it takes hold, and most readers will now be waiting anxiously for the two further installments of the trilogy that are due to follow."
—William Dalrymple, The Financial Times

"Rich and panoramic, Amitav Ghosh's latest novel—the first of a promised trilogy—sees this Indian author on masterly form. Set in 1838, just before the opium wars between Britain and China, Sea of Poppies is a sprawling adventure with a cast of hundreds and numerous intricate stories encompassing poverty and riches, despair and hope, and the long-fingered reach of the opium trade."
— The Economist

“One leaves this long page-turner wishing it could continue. One waits eagerly for its sequels. Sea of Poppies is a tremendous novel, and if Amitav Ghosh can sustain its brilliance in the two remaining parts, his “Ibis” trilogy will surely come to be regarded as one of the masterpieces of twenty-first-century fiction.”
—Literary Review

“Sea of Poppies is a thoroughly readable romp of a novel, filled with excellent set pieces, comic digressions (especially its comedies of manners), love interest, subterfuge and betrayal. We are left thirsty for more.”
—New Statesman