I had to read Sea of Poppies though since it was part of my coursework and mind you, I wasn’t disappointed. I can only imagine the amount of research that went into it. The dialogue, showered with words from a variety of languages and dialects flows seamlessly without seeming deliberate at any point. read more
The coolies who inspired “Sea of Poppies” didn’t have that power. Unlike Grierson, they didn’t leave diaries behind; after all, they couldn’t even write. read more
In Amitav Ghosh's remarkably rich saga, the first of three promised volumes, the sea of the title is more like a flood and a man-made disaster at that: the compulsory cultivation of opium poppies imposed on Indians by the East India Company (the book is set in 1838). read more