Sea of Poppies - Amitav Ghosh

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India, ~1833

Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies is the first part of the Ibis Trilogy. A bleak look at the lives of a diverse cast of characters during the time leading up to the Opium Wars. 

The Opium Wars were the result of a trade imbalance between the British and Chinese empires. The British were importing a lot of tea from China and the Chinese had no use for any British commodities except for silver, which the British soon began to run out of. In order to correct the imbalance the British decided to create a market for opium which was cultivated in British India. When the Chinese realised what was happening they prohibited opium and the British waged a war against the prohibition against opium and against the Chinese, all in the name of free trade. 

Along with a tough subject matter the language of the book can also be difficult to get used to - almost weaning out the readers who can’t handle the overall experience. It is verbose and idiosyncratic; pidgin, transliteration,  slang, nautical terms and local dialects are used. This would get in the way of some readers enjoying the story; for others it would create an immersive experience. The writing style might be correct for the period setting, but it is ever-present, and takes away something from the story. 

Sea of Poppies tells the stories of the passengers on board the Ibis - who they are, how they got there and what they want from the rest of their lives. The boat is going from Calcutta to Mauritius, and the opium trade has woven itself into each one’s story, and probably symbolises how many lives it has impacted in India and China at the time. 

The passengers include a runaway couple - an ill-treated widow who has escaped being immolated on her husband’s funeral pyre, saved by a labourer; together they’re running away from the oppressive caste system and find themselves on their way to work in a sugar plantation. Neel Rattan Halder is also on his way to work the sugar fields; he is a former wealthy, high-caste landowner who’s lost his ancestral wealth and falsely implicated in a crime when he refuses to cooperate with a ‘çorporate raider’ equivalent of the times. 

Also aboard the Ibis is Zachary Reid - who’s escaping racism in America and finds himself in a fortunate position in Calcutta and then on the crew of the Ibis. The interactions and clashes of the passengers and their place in the system create some of the crucial turning points of the book. Sea of Poppies ends without closure, and readers who’ve managed to come this far will be compelled to go on to the next book. 

Sea of Poppies is complemented by James Clavell’s Tai-pan - the story of Dirk Struan - founder of the trading house Struans. Struans - a fictional business house is based on real businesses who started off and made fortunes in the opium trade. This is once again illustrated in James Clavell’s subsequent novel - Noble House. Many of Amitav Ghosh’s interviews have information on some of these businesses, however they leave the impression that the author is stopping short from naming many more.