Sea of Poppies

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008

'Sea of Poppies boasts a varied collection of characters to love and hate, and
provides wonderfully detailed descriptions . . . utterly involving and piles
on tension until the very last page' Sunday Times

At the heart of this epic saga, set just before the Opium Wars, is an old
slaving-ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian
Ocean, its crew a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts.

In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast
of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed villager, from an
evangelical English opium trader to a mulatto American freedman. As their old
family ties are washed away they, like their historical counterparts, come to
view themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born,
which will span continents, races and generations.

The vast sweep of this historical adventure spans the lush poppy fields of the
Ganges, the rolling high seas, and the exotic backstreets of China. But it is
the panorama of characters, whose diaspora encapsulates the vexed colonial
history of the East itself, which makes Sea of Poppies so breathtakingly alive
-- a masterpiece from one of the world's finest novelists.

To find out what happens next make sure to read River of Smoke and Flood of
Fire.