![]() ![]() “Many of the world’s biggest corporations got their start in the colonial opium trade. It also “traces the transformative impact” that the opium trade had on India, China, Britain and the US, with profound long-term consequences for the birth of the modern world, and of contemporary globalism. But in the course of my research, and much to my surprise, I stumbled upon a different trade in a precious commodity that was being carried in large quantities from India to China opium,” Ghosh said.Īccording to him, “Smoke and Ashes” is thus the story of how, under the aegis of the British Empire, India became the world’s largest producer of opium between the 18th and 19th centuries, and the different conditions under which opium was produced in various regions, with lasting effects for those areas. ![]() ![]() “When I started writing the novels, I thought they would be mainly about the transportation of indentured workers from India to Mauritius in the early 19th century. The book is also a very personal look at Ghosh’s own engagement with opium’s hidden histories – this is at one level a writer’s memoir, with deep insights into the process of writing the “Ibis Trilogy”, which comprises the novels “Sea of Poppies”, “River of Smoke” and “Flood of Fire”, the publishers said. “Smoke and Ashes” is at once a travelogue, a memoir and an excursion into history, both economic and cultural. ![]() Ghosh said his new book is based on the “enormous quantities of material” he accumulated while researching the trilogy of novels he wrote between 20. ![]()
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