Poppy Sea by Amitav Ghosh is the first book in an epoch-making trilogy about sea adventures in the nineteenth century. The intricate plot of The Sea of Poppies, full of unexpected twists and turns, unfolds in the luxurious scenery of colonial India just on the eve of the opium wars: poppy villages, dwellings of the raja, the estates of the British colonialists, opium factories, the closed world of a sea vessel. In the center of the intricately woven large-scale saga is the Ibis sailing ship, a former slave ship on which fate brings together a motley heap of amazingly different characters. A young French orphan | bankrupt Indian raja | an Indian widow who escaped from the rite of burning | apologist for a new religion| an American sailor who, unexpectedly for himself, became the captain's assistant ... The Ibis is supposed to take them from India to unknown Mauritius, and the listener will be carried away by an exciting story full of nobility and betrayal, dangers and trials, determination and freedom.

Press about the book:

“Gosh’s novel is not an anti-colonial pretentious manifesto, not a didactic panorama of a picture of the life of the colony, it is full of passion stories of men and women of all races and castes who have to leave the past forever and embark on the unknown future on a fragile ship. It is, above all, a book that touches the soul.”

The Times

The Poppy Sea is a real triumph both as a novel of ideas and as a frisky adventure story. This book is that rare bird yet: a historical novel filled to capacity with contemporary relevance and melodramatic twists.”

Boston Phoenix

Attention! The phonogram contains obscene language

Copyright

© Amitav Ghosh, 2008

© Alexander Safronov, translation, 2010, 2021

© Andrey Bondarenko , design, 2021

© Phantom Press Publishing House LLC, edition, 2021

Recorded by VIMBO Audio Publishing

© ℗ Vimbo LLC, 2021

Producers: Vadim Bukh, Mikhail Litvakov

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