Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. Amitav Ghosh says, “My new book, Smoke and Ashes: A Writer’s Journey Through Opium’s Hidden Histories, is based on the enormous quantities of material I accumulated while researching the trilogy of novels I wrote between 2005 and 2015. 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 nineteenth century. 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, however, is careful to assure us that his vision of the future isn’t all doom and gloom. In fact, he is certain that this tragic history is a rallying cry for the climate activists of today. For one, it shows us that plants can have agency too, more powerful than we can comprehend. And, of course, it serves as a reminder that throughout history, even in the darkest of times, humanity has banded together to make amazing change for the better. “In the late 19th century, a huge anti-opium movement came together internationally and they were able to impose certain constraints on these massive European empires, which were actually more powerful than energy corporations are today,” he shares. “I think we can take some hope from that. That’s ultimately what being human is about—to recognise that you have a duty to keep on trying.” Also read: Amitav Ghosh’s work has been translated into more than thirty languages. He has been awarded and felicitated across the world. In 2019 Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the most important global thinkers of the past decade. The same year, the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honour, was conferred on him: he was the first English-language writer to receive it. So, not a song about a poor girl, but a song of hope and how you can rise up no matter how far down you started. A clever whodunit, well served by smart writing, a dry-witted narrator, and a vividly recreated, rich, and colourful setting." Historical Novels ReviewRiveting. Mukherjee has a substantive grasp of colonial Indian history, and his books have the feel of a modern-day and much more progressive Kipling, full of high intrigue and derring-do, yet overlaid with the day-to-day reality of a struggle with addiction." Mystery Tribune

Smoke and Ashes is Abir Mukherjee's best book yet; a brilliantly conceived murder mystery set amidst political and social turmoil – beautifully crafted. CJ SansomAn ambitious new book that explores the immense effect the opium trade has had on world history and how opium continues to impact our lives today. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. As Wyndham and Sergeant 'Surrender-not' Banerjee set out to solve the two murders, Wyndham must tread carefully, keeping his personal demons secret, before someone else turns up dead... Use italics (lyric) and bold (lyric) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part India, 1921. Haunted by his memories of World War I, Captain Sam Wyndham is battling a serious addiction to opium that he must keep secret from his superiors in the Calcutta police force.

You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side. Smoke and Ashes is the story of how, under the aegis of the British Empire, India became the world’s largest producer of opium between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the different conditions under which opium was produced in various regions, with lasting effects for those areas. It also traces the transformative impact that the opium trade had on India, China, Britain and the United States, with profound long-term consequences for the birth of the modern world, and of contemporary globalism. Many of the world’s biggest corporations got their start in the colonial opium trade. But the opium economy also had significant effects at the microlevel, influencing migration and settlement patterns, and touching upon millions of lives, including those of my own forefathers. All I’m trying to do is write about the world as I see it”: Amitav Ghosh on his new book, his inspirations and his hopes for the future of literature India, 1921. Haunted by his memories of the Great War, Captain Sam Wyndham is battling a serious addiction to opium that he must keep secret from his superiors in the Calcutta police force.

Smoke and Ashes is Abir Mukherjee's best book yet; a brilliantly conceived murder mystery set amidst political and social turmoil - beautifully crafted' C.J. Sansom Opium is such an important part of our economic history, but has almost been erased from our understanding of the world. It has left permanent marks on eastern and western India, in a very significant sense,” the author said on Thursday at the launch of his new book Smoke and Ashes: A writer’s journey through Opium’s hidden histories. He was in conversation with singer and activist T.M. Krishna. Once he started researching the subject of his Ibis trilogy — opium, Author Amitav Ghosh said that he realised the power certain myths acquire in silencing history. Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir and an excursion into history, both economic and cultural. Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India and China, as well as on the world at large. Engineered by the British Empire, which exported opium from India to sell in China, the trade and its revenues were essential to the Empire’s survival. Upon deeper exploration, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world’s biggest corporations, several of America’s most powerful families and institutions, and contemporary globalism itself. In India the long-term consequences were even more profound.