Amitav Ghosh – författare

"En våg av eld" är den tredje delen i amitav Ghoshs  hyllade Ibis-trilogi. Året är 1839 och spänningen har snabbt ökat mellan Kina och Storbritannien. Plötsligt förklarar britterna – som vill tvinga Kina att köpa opium – krig. Ett av fartygen som rekvirerats för attacken, Hinden, reser österut från Bengalen i brittiska Indien till Kina och seglar in mitt i det första opiumkriget. På båten finns indiern Kesri Singh, som slåss för Ostindiska kompaniet; Zachary Reid, en amerikansk ung sjöman som vill göra en klassresa genom att sälja opium, och Shireen Modi, en målmedveten parsisk änka som vill återta sin opiumhandlande mans tillgångar och återupprätta hans rykte. I "En våg av eld" får vi följa dem, och flera andra karaktärer från de två första delarna, under inledningen av första opiumkriget. Under striderna och fortsatt spelar skeppet Ibis en viktig roll i historien. Amitav Ghoshs Ibistrilogi är ett mästerverk om den koloniala historia som än idag gör sig påmind i vår samtida världsordning.

Den andra delen i Amitav Ghoshs mäktiga romanbygge om migration och kolonial handel, Ibis-trilogin, utspelar sig på Mauritius och i Kanton. Vi får följa karaktärerna från den första delen under de händelser som leder fram till det första opiumkriget och britternas övertagande av Hong Kong. Amitav Ghosh (f 1956) är en av Indiens mest kända författare. Ghosh växte upp i Calcutta, Bangladesh och Sri Lanka, och utbildade sig vid universiteten i Delhi, Alexandria och har en doktorsexamen i socialantropologi. Ghosh har skrivit ett antal prisbelönade romaner som tematiskt kretsar kring migration, identitet och, de sneaste åren, klimatförändringen.På svenska finns tidigare Öarna ( Palaver press, 2020), essäsamlingen Den stora galenskapen - klimatförändringen och det otänkbara ( Palaver press 2020), och Ett hav av vallmo ( första delen i Ibis-trilogin)utgiven på Palaver 2021.

Har vi blivit galna? Den indiske författaren Amitav Ghosh menar att framtida generationer mycket väl kan dra den slutsatsen. I den hyllade essäboken Den stora galenskapen undersöker han vår kulturella och politiska oförmåga att förstå klimatförändringarnas våldsamhet och omfattning. Andre och reviderade upplagan.

I centrum för denna storslagna roman står skeppet Ibis och dess passagerare. Deeti är änka till en opiummissbrukare, räddad från makens begravningsbål av den lågkastiga Kalua. Paulette är den föräldralösa dottern till en fransk botaniker och Jodu, sonen till hennes amma, hennes enda länk till det förflutna. Vi får följa dem på deras väg till Mauritius i detta mästerverk av Amitav Ghosh.

'This shape-shifting, time-stitching novel grants us special kinds of double-vision: across eras and between species. Under its spell, Amitav Ghosh helps us begin to live multiple lives - to become aware of the porosity and mystery of being, rather than of its fortifications and frontiers' Robert Macfarlane, author of Is a River Alive?'A magical realist novel that believes in magic' Sunday Times'Amitav Ghosh has written with equal distinction in two genres - as a novelist and as a commentator on the climate emergency - and his supple new novel combines both to impressive effect' TLS'A gripping story of youth and self-knowledge' Abdulrazak Gurnah, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of AfterlivesCalcutta, September 1969Varsha Gupta wants fish for her lunch. Her family can't understand it; the three-year-old has never tasted fish in her life. The Guptas are strict vegetarians and don't allow it inside their Calcutta mansion. But Varsha claims she can remember another life, a mud house by a river where she caught and cooked fish with a different mother.Perplexed, the Guptas turn to Dr. Shoma Bose, a psychiatrist who has been investigating what are known as 'cases of the reincarnation type' for years. But her understanding of the world is changed forever by Varsha's revelations.Half a century later, Varsha's therapeutic case file catches the attention of a group of environmental activists, and Shoma's nephew Dinu is drawn inexorably into their plans. And as Dinu finds himself caught up in the search for Varsha, buried memories of his own past begin to surface.Travelling between late-sixties Calcutta and present-day Brooklyn, Ghost-Eye is an urgent and expansive novel about family, fate and our fragile planet.'Amitav Ghosh's intellectual panache and serene mastery of form make him one of the last great practitioners of the novel of ideas. Captivating' Pankaj Mishra

Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? In his first major book of nonfiction since In an Antique Land, Ghosh examines our inability--at the level of literature, history, and politics--to grasp the scale and violence of climate change. The extreme nature of today's climate events, Ghosh asserts, make them peculiarly resistant to contemporary modes of thinking and imagining. This is particularly true of serious literary fiction: hundred-year storms and freakish tornadoes simply feel too improbable for the novel; they are automatically consigned to other genres. In the writing of history, too, the climate crisis has sometimes led to gross simplifications; Ghosh shows that the history of the carbon economy is a tangled global story with many contradictory and counterintuitive elements. Ghosh ends by suggesting that politics, much like literature, has become a matter of personal moral reckoning rather than an arena of collective action. But to limit fiction and politics to individual moral adventure comes at a great cost.The climate crisis asks us to imagine other forms of human existence--a task to which fiction, Ghosh argues, is the best suited of all cultural forms. His book serves as a great writer's summons to confront the most urgent task of our time.

'Brims with ideas and insights . . . Ghosh is at his sparkling best' IRISH TIMESWild Fictions brings together Amitav Ghosh's extraordinary writing on the subjects that have obsessed him over the last twenty-five years: literature and language; climate change and the environment; human lives, travel, and discoveries. The spaces that we inhabit, and the way in which we occupy them, is a constant thread throughout this striking and expansive collection.From the significance of the commodification of the clove, the diversity of the mangrove forests in West Bengal and the radical fluidity of multilingualism, Wild Fictions is a powerful refutation of imperial violence, a fascinating exploration of the fictions we weave to absorb history, and a reminder of the importance of empathy. With the combination of moral passion, intellectual curiosity and literary elegance that defines his writing, Amitav Ghosh makes us understand the world in new, and urgent, ways. Together, the pieces within Wild Fictions chart a course that allows us to heal our relationships and restore a delicate balance with the volatile landscapes to which we all belong.'We owe a great debt to Ghosh's brilliant mind, avenging pen, and huge soul' NAOMI KLEIN, author of This Changes Everything

Bundook. Gun. A common word, but one which turns Deen Datta's world upside down.A dealer of rare books, Deen is used to a quiet life spent indoors, but as his once-solid beliefs begin to shift, he is forced to set out on an extraordinary journey; one that takes him from India to Los Angeles and Venice via a tangled route through the memories and experiences of those he meets along the way. There is Piya, a fellow Bengali-American who sets his journey in motion; Tipu, an entrepreneurial young man who opens Deen's eyes to the realities of growing up in today's world; Rafi, with his desperate attempt to help someone in need; and Cinta, an old friend who provides the missing link in the story they are all a part of. It is a journey which will upend everything he thought he knew about himself, about the Bengali legends of his childhood and about the world around him.Gun Island is a beautifully realised novel which effortlessly spans space and time. It is the story of a world on the brink, of increasing displacement and unstoppable transition. But it is also a story of hope, of a man whose faith in the world and the future is restored by two remarkable women.

A NEW EDITION WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY NEEL MUKHERJEE The international bestseller from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author 'Ghosh has established himself as one of the finest prose writers of his generation' Financial Times Set in Burma during the British invasion of 1885, this masterly novel tells the story of Rajkumar, a poor boy lifted on the tides of social and political chaos, who goes on to create an empire in the Burmese teak forest. When soldiers force the royal family out of the Glass Palace and into exile, Rajkumar befriends Dolly, a young woman in the court of the Burmese Queen, whose love will shape his life. He cannot forget her, and years later, as a rich man, he goes in search of her.From the Booker Prize-shortlisted author, an unforgettable story of love, war and family. Spanning three generations, in Burma, Malaya and India, The Glass Palace is an extraordinary epic.

'Do not miss this book' NAOMI KLEIN, author of This Changes EverythingThe history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation - of both human life and the natural environment - and the origin of our contemporary climate crisis.Tracing the threats to our future to the discovery of the New World and the sea route to the Indian Ocean, The Nutmeg's Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. The story of the nutmeg becomes a parable revealing the ways human history has always been entangled with earthly materials - spices, tea, sugarcane, opium, and fossil fuels. Our crisis, Ghosh shows, is ultimately the result of a mechanistic view of the earth, where nature exists only as a resource for humans to use for our own ends, rather than a force of its own, full of agency and meaning.Writing against the backdrop of the global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, Ghosh frames these historical stories in a way that connects our shared colonial past with the deep inequality we see around us today. By interweaving discussions on everything from the global history of the oil trade to the migrant crisis and the animist spirituality of indigenous communities around the world, The Nutmeg's Curse offers a sharp critique of contemporary society and speaks to the profoundly remarkable ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.

Bundook. Vapen. Ett vanligt ord, men ett som vänder upp och ner på Dean Dattas liv. Han tvingas överge sitt stillsamma liv i New York som handlare i sällsynta böcker och ge sig ut på en resa utöver det vanliga; en resa som tar honom från Indien till Los Angeles och Venedig. Öarna är berättelsen om en värld på randen till katastrof, om allt större folkförflyttningar och om ostoppbar förändring. Men det är också en berättelse om hopp, kärlek och tilltro till framtiden. Amitav Ghosh är en flerfaldigt prisbelönad författare. Han har bland annat tidigare skrivit den hyllade Ibis-trilogin, "Ett hav av vallmo", "En flod av rök" och "En våg av eld". "Rafflande samtidsroman" skrev DN Kultur när boken kom ut. "En av årets riktigt stora överraskningar" menade SR Kultur.

'A bracing new history of the global opium trade . . . Ghosh's tentacular history embraces opium's entanglement with furniture, architecture, gardens and its role in modern wars . . . But it's Ghosh's big-picture thinking that has made his nonfiction so influential . . . A huge achievement' The New York Times Book ReviewFrom the nineteenth century the British reaped huge profits by exporting vast quantities of opium from India, waged wars to defend its access to markets, and created a devastating addiction crisis in China. A sweeping story of greed and power, Smoke and Ashes reveals how opium created the wealth of modern cities like Mumbai, Singapore and Shanghai, as well as many of America's most powerful families and institutions, and is a part of Ghosh's personal history. 'Ghosh triumphs in laying out the shame of the British Empire's opium trade for all to see' Financial Times'This gave me a deeper chill than any TV series about the opioid crisis. . . The writing is sublime, the research thorough, the eye for story superb' Sunday Telegraph'Superlative . . . synthesise[s] a wealth of research with remarkable intellectual clarity' The Times 'Expansive and thoughtful' Peter Frankopan, The Spectator

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.In this personal and wide-ranging exploration of how our collective imaginations fail to grasp the scale of environmental destruction, Amitav Ghosh summons writers and novelists to confront the most urgent story of our times.Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

'This shape-shifting, time-stitching novel grants us special kinds of double-vision: across eras and between species. Under its spell, Amitav Ghosh helps us begin to live multiple lives - to become aware of the porosity and mystery of being, rather than of its fortifications and frontiers' Robert Macfarlane, author of Is a River Alive?'A magical realist novel that believes in magic' Sunday Times'Amitav Ghosh has written with equal distinction in two genres - as a novelist and as a commentator on the climate emergency - and his supple new novel combines both to impressive effect' TLS'A gripping story of youth and self-knowledge' Abdulrazak Gurnah, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of AfterlivesCalcutta, September 1969Varsha Gupta wants fish for her lunch. Her family can't understand it; the three-year-old has never tasted fish in her life. The Guptas are strict vegetarians and don't allow it inside their Calcutta mansion. But Varsha claims she can remember another life, a mud house by a river where she caught and cooked fish with a different mother.Perplexed, the Guptas turn to Dr. Shoma Bose, a psychiatrist who has been investigating what are known as 'cases of the reincarnation type' for years. But her understanding of the world is changed forever by Varsha's revelations.Half a century later, Varsha's therapeutic case file catches the attention of a group of environmental activists, and Shoma's nephew Dinu is drawn inexorably into their plans. And as Dinu finds himself caught up in the search for Varsha, buried memories of his own past begin to surface.Travelling between late-sixties Calcutta and present-day Brooklyn, Ghost-Eye is an urgent and expansive novel about family, fate and our fragile planet.'Amitav Ghosh's intellectual panache and serene mastery of form make him one of the last great practitioners of the novel of ideas. Captivating' Pankaj Mishra

The International Bestseller from the Man Booker Prize shortlisted author ‘An absorbing story of a world in transition’ J. M. Coetzee 'A Doctor Zhivago for the Far East' The Independent Rajkumar is only another boy, helping on a market stall in the dusty square outside the royal palace, when the British force the Burmese King, Queen and all the Court into exile. He is rescued by the far-seeing Chinese merchant, and with him builds up a logging business in upper Burma. But haunted by his vision of the Royal Family, he journeys to the obscure town in India where they have been exiled.The story follows the fortunes – rubber estates in Malaya, businesses in Singapore, estates in Burma – which Rajkumar, with his Chinese, British and Burmese relations, friends and associates, builds up – from 1870 through the Second World War to the scattering of the extended family to New York and Thailand, London and Hong Kong in the post-war years.

A profound and absorbing saga from the Internationally Bestselling and Man Booker Prize shortlisted author'Amitav Ghosh is such a fascinating and seductive writer… I cannot think of another contemporary writer with whom it would be this thrilling to go so far, so fast' The TimesJanuary 2001: A small ship, led by wealthy Scotsman Daniel Hamilton, arrives in the Sundarbans, a vast archipelago of islands in the mythical river Ganges, a half-drowned land where the waters of the Himalayas merge with the incoming tides of the sea.In the Sundarbans the tides reach more than 100 miles inland, and every day thousands of hectares of forest disappear only to re-emerge hours later. Dense as the mangrove forests are, from Hamilton’s point of view, it is only a little less barren than a desert.The eccentric Scotsman and the scientists on board the ship disembark to study this little-known environment, and to trace the journeys of the descendants of this society. Their goal? To create a utopian society, of all races and religions, and conquer the might of the Sundarbans.

A profound and absorbing saga from the Internationally Bestselling and Man Booker Prize shortlisted author'Amitav Ghosh is such a fascinating and seductive writer… I cannot think of another contemporary writer with whom it would be this thrilling to go so far, so fast' The TimesJanuary 2001: A small ship, led by wealthy Scotsman Daniel Hamilton, arrives in the Sundarbans, a vast archipelago of islands in the mythical river Ganges, a half-drowned land where the waters of the Himalayas merge with the incoming tides of the sea.In the Sundarbans the tides reach more than 100 miles inland, and every day thousands of hectares of forest disappear only to re-emerge hours later. Dense as the mangrove forests are, from Hamilton’s point of view, it is only a little less barren than a desert.The eccentric Scotsman and the scientists on board the ship disembark to study this little-known environment, and to trace the journeys of the descendants of this society. Their goal? To create a utopian society, of all races and religions, and conquer the might of the Sundarbans.

The International Bestseller from the Man Booker Prize shortlisted author 'An absorbing story of a world in transition’ JM Coetzee 'A Doctor Zhivago for the Far East' The Independent Rajkumar is only another boy, helping on a market stall in the dusty square outside the royal palace, when the British force the Burmese King, Queen and all the Court into exile. He is rescued by the far-seeing Chinese merchant, and with him builds up a logging business in upper Burma. But haunted by his vision of the Royal Family, he journeys to the obscure town in India where they have been exiled.The story follows the fortunes – rubber estates in Malaya, businesses in Singapore, estates in Burma – which Rajkumar, with his Chinese, British and Burmese relations, friends and associates, builds up – from 1870 through the Second World War to the scattering of the extended family to New York and Thailand, London and Hong Kong in the post-war years.

The International Bestseller from the Man Booker Prize shortlisted author''An absorbing story of a world in transition’ JM Coetzee''A Doctor Zhivago for the Far East'' The IndependentRajkumar is only another boy, helping on a market stall in the dusty square outside the royal palace, when the British force the Burmese King, Queen and all the Court into exile. He is rescued by the far-seeing Chinese merchant, and with him builds up a logging business in upper Burma. But haunted by his vision of the Royal Family, he journeys to the obscure town in India where they have been exiled.The story follows the fortunes – rubber estates in Malaya, businesses in Singapore, estates in Burma – which Rajkumar, with his Chinese, British and Burmese relations, friends and associates, builds up – from 1870 through the Second World War to the scattering of the extended family to New York and Thailand, London and Hong Kong in the post-war years.

A profound and absorbing saga from the Internationally Bestselling and Man Booker Prize shortlisted author''Amitav Ghosh is such a fascinating and seductive writer… I cannot think of another contemporary writer with whom it would be this thrilling to go so far, so fast'' The TimesJanuary 2001: A small ship, led by wealthy Scotsman Daniel Hamilton, arrives in the Sundarbans, a vast archipelago of islands in the mythical river Ganges, a half-drowned land where the waters of the Himalayas merge with the incoming tides of the sea.In the Sundarbans the tides reach more than 100 miles inland, and every day thousands of hectares of forest disappear only to re-emerge hours later. Dense as the mangrove forests are, from Hamilton’s point of view, it is only a little less barren than a desert.The eccentric Scotsman and the scientists on board the ship disembark to study this little-known environment, and to trace the journeys of the descendants of this society. Their goal? To create a utopian society, of all races and religions, and conquer the might of the Sundarbans.

A profound and absorbing saga from the Internationally Bestselling and Man Booker Prize shortlisted author''Amitav Ghosh is such a fascinating and seductive writer… I cannot think of another contemporary writer with whom it would be this thrilling to go so far, so fast'' The TimesJanuary 2001: A small ship, led by wealthy Scotsman Daniel Hamilton, arrives in the Sundarbans, a vast archipelago of islands in the mythical river Ganges, a half-drowned land where the waters of the Himalayas merge with the incoming tides of the sea.In the Sundarbans the tides reach more than 100 miles inland, and every day thousands of hectares of forest disappear only to re-emerge hours later. Dense as the mangrove forests are, from Hamilton’s point of view, it is only a little less barren than a desert.The eccentric Scotsman and the scientists on board the ship disembark to study this little-known environment, and to trace the journeys of the descendants of this society. Their goal? To create a utopian society, of all races and religions, and conquer the might of the Sundarbans.

The International Bestseller from the Man Booker Prize shortlisted author''An absorbing story of a world in transition’ JM Coetzee''A Doctor Zhivago for the Far East'' The IndependentRajkumar is only another boy, helping on a market stall in the dusty square outside the royal palace, when the British force the Burmese King, Queen and all the Court into exile. He is rescued by the far-seeing Chinese merchant, and with him builds up a logging business in upper Burma. But haunted by his vision of the Royal Family, he journeys to the obscure town in India where they have been exiled.The story follows the fortunes – rubber estates in Malaya, businesses in Singapore, estates in Burma – which Rajkumar, with his Chinese, British and Burmese relations, friends and associates, builds up – from 1870 through the Second World War to the scattering of the extended family to New York and Thailand, London and Hong Kong in the post-war years.

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.In this personal and wide-ranging exploration of how our collective imaginations fail to grasp the scale of environmental destruction, Amitav Ghosh summons writers and novelists to confront the most urgent story of our times.Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

Once upon a time an Indian writer named Amitav Ghosh set out an Indian slave, name unknown, who some seven hundred years before had traveled to the Middle East. The journey took him to a small village in Egypt, where medieval customs coexist with twentieth-century desires and discontents. But even as Ghosh sought to re-create the life of his Indian predecessor, he found himself immersed in those of his modern Egyptian neighbors.   Combining shrewd observations with painstaking historical research, Ghosh serves up skeptics and holy men, merchants and sorcerers. Some of these figures are real, some only imagined, but all emerge as vividly as the characters in a great novel. In an Antique Land is an inspired work that transcends genres as deftly as it does eras, weaving an entrancing and intoxicating spell.