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Farrar, Straus and Giroux
October 2011
On Sale: September 27, 2011
528 pages
ISBN: 0374174237
EAN: 9780374174231
Kindle: B004WJP0P0
Hardcover / e-Book
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Fiction
The Ibis, loaded to its gunwales with a cargo of
indentured servants, is in the grip of a cyclone in the Bay
of Bengal; among the dozens flailing for survival are Neel,
the pampered raja who has been convicted of embezzlement;
Paulette, the French orphan masquerading as a deck-hand; and
Deeti, the widowed poppy grower fleeing her homeland with
her lover, Kalua. The storm also threatens the clipper
ship Anahita, groaning with the largest consignment
of opium ever to leave India for Canton. And the
Redruth, a nursery ship, carries Frederick “Fitcher”
Penrose, a horticulturist determined to track down the
priceless treasures of China that are hidden in plain sight:
its plants that have the power to heal, or beautify, or
intoxicate. All will converge in Canton’s Fanqui-town, or
Foreign Enclave: a tumultuous world unto itself where
civilizations clash and sometimes fuse. It is a powder keg
awaiting a spark to ignite the Opium Wars. Spectacular
coincidences, startling reversals of fortune, and tender
love stories abound. But this is much more than an
irresistible page-turner. The blind quest for money, the
primacy of the drug trade, the concealment of base impulses
behind the rhetoric of freedom: in River of Smoke the
nineteenth and twenty-first centuries converge, and the
result is a consuming historical novel with powerful
contemporary resonance. Critics praised Sea of Poppies
for its vibrant storytelling, antic humor, and rich
narrative scope; now Amitav Ghosh continues the epic that
has charmed and compelled readers all over the globe.
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