Title: Smoke and Ashes: A Writer’s Journey Through
Opium’s Hidden Histories
Author: Amitav Ghosh
Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2023
Genre: Non-Fiction, History, Culture
ISBN: 978-9356992757
Hardback: 408 Pages
Buy the Book: AMAZON
‘The stamp of the past sometimes sinks so deep into the fabric of everyday life that its traces are difficult, if not impossible, to erase.’
Amitav Ghosh’s Smoke and Ashes is a blend of travel diary, life memories, and history. Ghosh explores opium's impact on Britain, India, China, and the world. This book sheds light on our intertwined history with the tea and opium trade during the 18th and 19th centuries. The British Empire pushed the opium trade, vital for survival.The impact in India was tragic.
Seven years ago, reading "Sea of Poppies," I missed its extensive research. "Smoke and Ashes" now discloses that around twenty years ago, when Ghosh started working on the Ibis Trilogy, he was surprised to discover that the lives of the sailors were influenced by a valuable thing they carried - opium. Along with, its surprising connection to his family's history.
The blurb says Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism, and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, Smoke and Ashes reveals the pivotal role one small plant has played in the making of the world as we know it - a world that is now teetering on the edge of catastrophe.
Ghosh's memoir links his ancestry to opium's influence. His father's tales from Bihar, show opium's dual force: – both destructive and life-giving. Ghosh writes, that in the East, the British ran a heavy-handed Opium Department, all under its thumb, dictating planting, auctions, and farmers' pay.
Smoke and Ashes, highlights the collective memory and recognizes our role in shaping of cultural history. The account travels globally – from Mumbai's Parsis, then to China's artisans, weavers, and potters in bustling Guangzhou.
‘Had eastern travellers entered the home of a poppy farmer, they would have noticed, to their further surprise, that in this harvested poppy region, the latex was stored not in pots of water, as was the practice in the east, but in containers filled with linseed oil. Had curiosity compelled them to visit a production facility, they would have been astonished to find themselves not in a huge fortress of a factory, like those of Patna or Ghazipur, but in a small shed, filled with flat cakes laid out to dry in the shade.’
In Ghosh's non-fiction style, research combines with
storytelling. While tracing opium’s history, the author exposes the truth
behind capitalism. Each chapter offers captivating narratives. To sum up,
Ghosh's book delves into the depths of opium history, its detailed research and
compelling prose lingering. A recommended read!
About the Author
Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in 1956. He studied in Dehra Dun, New Delhi, Alexandria and Oxford and his first job was at the Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi. He earned a doctorate at Oxford before he wrote his first novel, which was published in 1986.
The Circle of Reason won the Prix Medicis Etranger, one of France's top
literary awards, and The Shadow Lines won the Sahitya Akademi Award
and the Ananda Puraskar. The Calcutta Chromosome won the Arthur C.
Clarke Award for 1997 and The Glass Palace won the Grand Prize for
Fiction at the Frankfurt International e-Book Awards in 2001. The Hungry
Tide won the Hutch Crossword Book Prize in 2006. In 2007 Amitav Ghosh was
awarded the Grinzane Cavour Prize in Turin, Italy. Amitav Ghosh has written for
many publications, including the Hindu, The New
Yorker and Granta, and he has served on the juries of several
international film festivals, including Locarno and Venice. He has taught at
many universities in India and the USA, including Delhi University, Columbia,
the City University of New York and Harvard. He no longer teaches and is
currently writing the next volume of the Ibis Trilogy.
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