At the heart of this vibrant saga is a vast 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 freespirited 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 spans the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling high seas, the exotic backstreets of China. 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.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Diaspora, myth and a fascinating language mashup propel the Rubik's cube of plots in Ghosh's picaresque epic of the voyage of the Ibis, a ship transporting Indian girmitiyas (coolies) to Mauritius in 1838. The first two-thirds of the book chronicles how the crew and the human cargo come to the vessel, now owned by rising opium merchant Benjamin Burnham. Mulatto second mate Zachary Reid, a 20-year-old of Lord Jim–like innocence, is passing for white and doesn't realize his secret is known to the gomusta (overseer) of the coolies, Baboo Nob Kissin, an educated Falstaffian figure who believes Zachary is the key to realizing his lifelong mission. Among the human cargo, there are three fugitives in disguise, two on the run from a vengeful family and one hoping to escape from Benjamin. Also on board is a formerly high caste raj who was brought down by Benjamin and is now on his way to a penal colony. 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. (Oct.)

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阿米塔夫•高希（Amitav Ghosh） 出生于加尔各答，成长于印度、孟加拉国和斯里兰卡等地。他从新德里大学毕业后，转而前往牛津大学研习社会人类学博士学位。他曾是田野工作者，也曾经任职记者，但最终他成为一个小说家，并且以其独有的人类学关怀、学者的丰富知识背景，以及细腻入微的描写，构成了当代印度英语文学重要的一部分。

自一九八六年出版第一部小说《理性环》（The Circle of Reason）之后，阿米塔夫•高希笔耕不辍，出版了《阴影线》（The Shadow Lines）、《加尔各答染色体》（The Calcutta Chromosome）、《玻璃宫殿》(The Glass Palace)、《饿潮》（The Hungry Tide），以及“朱鹭号”三部曲中的《罂粟海》和《烟河》（River of Smoke）等著作，并先后获得包括法国美第奇文学奖、印度国内最负盛名的文学奖挲诃德耶学院奖以及英国阿瑟•克拉克科幻奖等奖项。其中，《罂粟海》更是入围二〇〇八年英国曼布克奖决选名单，荣获二〇〇九年沃达丰字谜图书奖年度最佳小说，以及二〇〇九年印度广场金鹅毛笔最佳年度小说以及读者票选最受欢迎奖。

阿米塔夫•高希曾与二〇〇七年被印度总统授予印度最高荣誉“卓越贡献奖”（Padma Shri），还曾于二〇一〇年与著名作家玛格丽特•阿斯特伍德同获丹•大卫奖。