River of Smoke - A Triumph of Storytelling The Hindu  (English, Paperback, Ghosh Amitav)

River of Smoke is a national bestseller written by Amitav Ghosh. The novel revolves around opium trade that initiated from the poppy fields in India.

Summary of the Book

River of Smoke is the second volume in the Ibis trilogy. It is a story that traces opium trade, which eventually leads to the opium wars in China. In this volume, the opium drug has to reach China, but three ships are caught in an unforeseen storm. Anahita, one of the ships, is owned by a Parsi businessman called Bahram Modi.  He is the son-in-law of a thriving shipbuilder. With the demise of his father-in-law, Modi’s brother-in-law tries to persuade him to end the business. However, Modi decides to quit after taking care of his last order. He is supposed to ship opium to China, before the ban on the substance was made official. Ah Fat, Modi’s son, and Neel Rattan, a landlord, are both convicts, who have escaped from the Ibis. The three of them meet Paulette Lambert and Fitcher Penrose near Canton. What follows next? Will the ships reach China well in time? Find out in this bestselling page-turner. River of Smoke, in the unfinished trilogy, is preceded by Sea of Poppies. The novel was shortlisted for The Hindu Literary Prize in 2011, longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2011, and shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature in 2013.

About Amitav Ghosh

The Indian-born English writer Amitav Ghosh’s work mostly constitutes historical situations, specifically Indian at that. He is from West Bengal. His debut novel was The Circle of Reason, and he has ever since been a prolific writer. Born in July 1956, Ghosh studied in some of the most reputed educational institutes of India. He later acquired a D.Phil. from St. Edmund Hall in social anthropology. He was also a professor and taught at Queens College, City University of New York, and Harvard. For his outstanding contributions to literature, Amitav Ghosh has been awarded the Padma Shri award by the Indian government in the year 2007. He has also won the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Dan David Prize, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and was nominated for the Man Booker Prize in 2008 for his book Sea of Poppies. Some of his other notable works are The Shadow Lines, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace, and The Hungry Tide.