Ibis trilogy

Last updated

Ibis trilogy
Author Amitav Ghosh
CountryIndia
LanguageEnglish
Genre Historical fiction
Publisher Penguin Books
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Audiobook
E-book
No. of books3
Website www.amitavghosh.com

The Ibis trilogy is a work of historical fiction by Indian writer Amitav Ghosh, consisting of the novels Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011) and Flood of Fire (2015). A work of postcolonial literature, the story is set across the Indian Ocean region during the 1830s in the lead-up to the First Opium War. It particularly focuses on the trade of opium between India and China and the trafficking of girmityas to Mauritius. The series has received critical acclaim and academic attention for its historical research, themes and ambition. A television series adaptation was announced to be in development in 2019.

Contents

Synopsis

Depiction of indentured labourers being transported to Mauritius in 1834, as depicted in the series Visual Art of the first indentured Indian labourers arriving in Mauritius (1834).jpg
Depiction of indentured labourers being transported to Mauritius in 1834, as depicted in the series

The trilogy gets its names from the Ibis, a schooner slave ship that is repurposed to transport opium and girmityas. [1] [2] Most of the main characters meet for the first time on the ship. The series is set during the 1830s across the Indian Ocean region amid the build-up to the First Opium War. [3] The series follows a nonlinear narrative. [4]

In Sea of Poppies , the Ibis sets off from Calcutta carrying indentured servants and convicts destined for Mauritius, but runs into a major storm and faces a mutiny. [3] River of Smoke is set in China — particularly around the Thirteen Factories — at opium's destination, where tensions between local authorities and international traders begin to escalate. The second instalment follows the inhabitants of two other ships caught in the same storm as the Ibis — the Anahita, a vessel carrying opium to Canton, and the Redruth, which is on a botanical expedition, also to Canton. [2] Flood of Fire culminates in the outbreak of the First Opium War and its impact across the Indian Ocean region, [1] including leading to the foundation of Hong Kong. [5]

The novels depict a range of characters from different cultures, ethnicities, social classes and genders. [2] This includes Bihari peasants, Bengali Zamindars [6] and traders and officials of British, Chinese and Parsi descent. [7] In addition to their native tongues, the novels also introduce the readers to various pidgins, including the original Chinese Pidgin English and variants spoken by the lascars. Pidgins are used as a common language spoken by characters of different nationalities, particularly in the naval profession. [7]

Historical background

Depiction of British opium ships off the coast of China in 1824 by William John Huggins. This period of history provides the inspiration for the Ibis trilogy. William John Huggins - The opium ships at Lintin, China, 1824.jpg
Depiction of British opium ships off the coast of China in 1824 by William John Huggins. This period of history provides the inspiration for the Ibis trilogy.

The Ibis trilogy is set to the backdrop of the opium trade in China during the 1830s, which was causing widespread addiction in the country, but was a lucrative endeavour for British and American merchants. After diplomatic attempts to end it failed, in 1839, Chinese Commissioner Lin Zexu ordered a ban on the trade and the destruction of all opium in the port of Canton. The British Navy retaliated, triggering the First Opium War. The British defeated China and signed several unequal treaties, allowing them to take over Hong Kong. These events had global implications and were important steps in the later expansion of the British Empire. [8]

There is no primary research. On the Indian presence in Canton, so little has been written. Historians have tended to write the military history of the war but the Opium War was very much an Indian war — finances, transport vessels, Indian Parsis, Bohras.

 – Writer Amitav Ghosh on researching the historical background to the series. [9]

Ghosh particularly focuses on the role of India in the trade and subsequent conflict, an area that had attracted little prior popular or academic attention. [9] At the time, India was governed by the British East India Company. [10] He was initially inspired by the lives of Indian indentured workers who emigrated from the Bihar region, but found numerous links to the opium trade through researching this. [10] He said in 2008 that he was inspired to begin The Sea of Poppies as a response to what he viewed as the "historical amnesia about war and empire" of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. [8] [11] Beginning in 2004, he travelled to libraries across China, Hong Kong and Singapore to research the setting [9] and utilised his academic training as a social anthropologist for a historiographical approach to fiction writing. [12] It took Ghosh 10 years to complete the series [4] and he conducted enough research during the writing process to publish several academic texts on Indian Ocean naval history. [8]

Themes and style

Colonialism and globalisation

Ghosh promoting River of Smoke in 2011 Amitav Ghosh - River Of Smoke 2011 a crop.jpg
Ghosh promoting River of Smoke in 2011

The series has been described as a work of postcolonial literature [13] [14] and been proposed as blurring the line between historical fact and fiction. [15] Ghosh uses the trade of opium as a narrative device to explore the history and legacy of the colonial era and describe people's everyday experiences of the British Empire. [15] [16] He also raises ethical questions regarding the trade of opium, such as the role of forced labour, and suggests opium was essential to the economic survival of the British Empire. [16] [15] Ghosh also uses the opium trade to discuss it as an early form of globalisation and commercialisation. [17]

The series' themes stem from the asymmetrical relations that arose through the opium wars, including abundance and poverty, intimacy and exclusion, chance and fate, and authority. [14] With a narrative that spans the Indian Ocean region, the trilogy has been suggested as proposing the region an alternative space for discussing colonial history, as a region with extensive international trade. [13] Ghosh also uses the series to explore the unequal interpretation of history by focusing on subaltern people and perspectives. [15] [16]

Water

Ghosh has described water as a key theme of the series. [9] He said in 2015: "I’m from West Bengal. Water, rivers etc., are an important aspect of life there, even in Bengali art and cinema. Personally, water is an essential part of my imaginative landscape." [4]

Language

Ghosh manipulates and uses different languages in the series to touch on themes of diaspora, globalisation, [18] [19] hybrid languages and ineffability. [14] He supplements his prose in the series with at least 23 languages other than English, and has described this multilingual mix as "zubben". [14] Sea of Poppies includes a "Chrestomathy" which describes the meanings and origins of several words that appear throughout. [6]

Ecology and environment

The series has also been described as having an eco-critical narrative, touching on the transformation and use of natural resources for economic means, as well as climate change. [20] [21]

Reception

The trilogy was for the most part well received. [3] In Los Angeles Review of Books , Anjali Vaidya praised the series, saying "Against this exquisitely researched historical backdrop, the tale of Britain’s victory and China’s loss reaches the levels of Greek tragedy in Ghosh’s skilled hands — there are few storytellers alive today in the English language as gifted as Amitav Ghosh." She said that Flood of Fire was the strongest entry, whereas the other two could sometimes be "weighed down at times by the research that went into them". [8]

Alex Clark in The Guardian reviewed the trilogy positively, saying "[Ghosh] marshals the language of tiny details, from naval and military terminology to food and clothes and interiors, from boudoir to battlefield, in order to bolster our sense of how enormous and wide-ranging were the effects of this period of history, and of the unforgiving, brutalising opium trade in particular, how greatly it shaped international relations, communities and patterns of migration." [1] In South China Morning Post , James Kidd gave Flood of Fire five out of five stars, saying "few writers have combined popular and literary styles in a Hong Kong-set book better than Amitav Ghosh", and commended the series for its narrative, humour and exploration of realpolitik. [5]

In The American Historical Review , Mark Frost discussed Ghosh's credentials as a historian in the trilogy. He suggests "one weakness of Ghosh’s first installment in the Ibis Trilogy is his failure to read Victorian primary sources with a sufficiently critical eye," but that he "remains a historiographical torchbearer who over much of his career has explored the past connections and convergences of the Indian Ocean world well ahead of the academic curve." [22]

Awards

TitleYearAwardResultRef
Sea of Poppies 2008 Man Booker Prize Shortlisted [1]
River of Smoke 2013 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature Shortlisted [23]
2011 Man Asian Literary Prize Shortlisted [24]
2011 The Hindu Literary Prize Shortlisted [25]
Flood of Fire 2016 Crossword Book Award for English FictionWon [26]
2015The Hindu Literary PrizeShortlisted [27]

Future and adaptations

Although he said the trilogy was completed, Ghosh suggested in 2015 that "at some point, I may return to these characters. I don’t feel I have parted from the characters yet." [4] In March 2019, it was announced that a television series based on the books would be directed by Shekhar Kapur and produced by Artists Studio, part of Endemol Shine Group. [28] Michael Hirst was announced as the writer of the series. [29] In 2023, Ghosh published Smoke and Ashes, a non-fiction book about the history of the opium trade, based on the research he had compiled whilst writing the trilogy. [30]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Opium</span> Dried latex obtained from the opium poppy

Opium is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy Papaver somniferum. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which is processed chemically to produce heroin and other synthetic opioids for medicinal use and for the illegal drug trade. The latex also contains the closely related opiates codeine and thebaine, and non-analgesic alkaloids such as papaverine and noscapine. The traditional, labor-intensive method of obtaining the latex is to scratch ("score") the immature seed pods (fruits) by hand; the latex leaks out and dries to a sticky yellowish residue that is later scraped off and dehydrated. The word meconium historically referred to related, weaker preparations made from other parts of the opium poppy or different species of poppies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Opium War</span> 1839–1842 war between Britain and China

The First Opium War, also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and the Qing dynasty of China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of their ban on the opium trade by seizing private opium stocks from merchants at Canton and threatening to impose the death penalty for future offenders. Despite the opium ban, the British government supported the merchants' demand for compensation for seized goods, and insisted on the principles of free trade and equal diplomatic recognition with China. Opium was Britain's single most profitable commodity trade of the 19th century. After months of tensions between the two states, the British navy launched an expedition in June 1840, which ultimately defeated the Chinese using technologically superior ships and weapons by August 1842. The British then imposed the Treaty of Nanking, which forced China to increase foreign trade, give compensation, and cede Hong Kong Island to the British. Consequently the opium trade continued in China. Twentieth-century nationalists considered 1839 the start of a century of humiliation, and many historians consider it the beginning of modern Chinese history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second Opium War</span> 1856–1860 war between allied British–French forces and Imperial China

The Second Opium War, also known as the Second Anglo-Sino War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a colonial war lasting from 1856 to 1860, which pitted the British Empire and the French Empire against the Qing dynasty of China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Opium Wars</span> Two 19th-century conflicts between China and Western powers

The Opium Wars were two conflicts waged between China and Western powers during the mid-19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shekhar Kapur</span> Indian filmmaker (born 1945)

Shekhar Kulbhushan Kapur is an Indian filmmaker and actor. Born into the Anand-Sahni family, Kapur is the recipient of several accolades, including a BAFTA Award, a National Film Award, a National Board of Review Award and three Filmfare Awards, in addition to nomination for a Golden Globe Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lin Zexu</span> Chinese scholar-official (1785–1850)

Lin Zexu, courtesy name Yuanfu, was a Chinese political philosopher and politician. He was a head of state (Viceroy), Governor General, scholar-official, and under the Daoguang Emperor of the Qing dynasty best known for his role in the First Opium War of 1839–42. He was from Fuzhou, Fujian Province. Lin's forceful opposition to the opium trade was a primary catalyst for the First Opium War. He is praised for his constant position on the "moral high ground" in his fight, but he is also blamed for a rigid approach which failed to account for the domestic and international complexities of the problem. The Emperor endorsed the hardline policies and anti-drugs movement advocated by Lin, but placed all responsibility for the resulting disastrous Opium War onto Lin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amitav Ghosh</span> Indian writer (born 1956)

Amitav Ghosh is an Indian writer. He won the 54th Jnanpith award in 2018, India's highest literary honor. Ghosh's ambitious novels use complex narrative strategies to probe the nature of national and personal identity, particularly of the people of India and South Asia. He has written historical fiction and also written non-fiction works discussing topics such as colonialism and climate change.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canton System</span> Chinese policy in which all foreign trade was restricted to Canton/Guangzhou (1757-1842)

The Canton System served as a means for Qing China to control trade with the West within its own country by focusing all trade on the southern port of Canton. The protectionist policy arose in 1757 as a response to a perceived political and commercial threat from abroad on the part of successive Chinese emperors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baghdadi Jews</span> Jewish ethnic group from the Middle East

The former communities of Jewish migrants and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East are traditionally called Baghdadi Jews or Iraqi Jews. They settled primarily in the ports and along the trade routes around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.

Indian English literature (IEL), also referred to as Indian Writing in English (IWE), is the body of work by writers in India who write in the English language but whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous languages of India. Its early history began with the works of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and Michael Madhusudan Dutt followed by Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo. R. K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao contributed to the growth and popularity of Indian English fiction in the 1930s. It is also associated, in some cases, with the works of members of the Indian diaspora who subsequently compose works in English.

The Cohong, sometimes spelled kehang or gonghang, a guild of Chinese merchants or hongs, operated the import–export monopoly in Canton during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). During the century prior to the First Opium War of 1839–1842, trade relations between China and Europe took place exclusively via the Cohong – a system formalised by an imperial edict of the Qianlong Emperor in 1738. The Chinese merchants who made up the Cohong were referred to as hangshang (行商) and their foreign counterparts as yanghang.

The Government Opium and Alkaloid Factories (GOAF) is an Indian government-owned organisation. Its headquarter is located in New Delhi. The overall supervision of the organisation comes under the purview of Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance. There are two factories under this organisation - Government Opium and Alkaloid Works, Ghazipur (U.P.) and Government Opium and Alkaloid Works, Neemuch (M.P.).

<i>Sea of Poppies</i> 2008 novel by Amitav Ghosh

Sea of Poppies (2008) is a novel by Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008. It is the first volume of the Ibis trilogy. In the words of Rajnish Mishra, "the Ibis trilogy is Ghosh's most vehement indictment of the source of imperialism and colonialism". The second volume is River of Smoke.

<i>In an Antique Land</i> 1992 book by Amitav Ghosh

In an Antique Land is a 1992 book written in first-person by Indian writer Amitav Ghosh recounting his experiences in two Egyptian villages attempting to retrace accounts of an unknown Indian slave, as well as a reconstruction of the life of a 12th-century Jewish merchant in the area. It describes a variety of characters, going into great detail regarding their lives and Ghosh's interactions with them.

<i>River of Smoke</i>

River of Smoke (2011) is a novel by Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh. It is the second volume of the Ibis trilogy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of opium in China</span> Aspect of history

The history of opium in China began with the use of opium for medicinal purposes during the 7th century. In the 17th century the practice of mixing opium with tobacco for smoking spread from Southeast Asia, creating a far greater demand.

The Opium Clerk is a 2001 novel written by Kunal Basu about the effects of the Eastern opium trade on three generations of an Anglo-Indian “family”. While the novel is nominally about the opium trade it also tells the story of the British trading presence in China and Southeast Asia from the perspective of one of the Indian employees.

<i>Flood of Fire</i>

Flood of Fire is a 2015 novel by Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh. Following the Sea of Poppies (2008) and River of Smoke (2011), the novel is the final installment of the Ibis trilogy, which concerns the 19th-century opium trade between India and China. The book was first published by the English publisher John Murray, and later by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the United States. The novel was shortlisted for The Hindu Literary Prize and received the Crossword Book Jury Award in Fiction in 2015.

<i>The Circle of Reason</i> (novel)

The Circle of Reason is the first novel by Indian writer Amitav Ghosh. It was published in 1986. It follows an Indian protagonist who, suspected of being a terrorist, leaves India for northern Africa and the Middle East. Blending elements of fable and picaresque fiction, it is distinctly postcolonial in its marginalization of Europe and postmodern in its nonlinear structure and thick intertextuality.

<i>The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable</i> 2016 book by Amitav Ghosh

The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable is a 2016 non-fiction book by Indian writer Amitav Ghosh discussing climate change. In it, Ghosh discusses the cultural depictions, history and politics of climate change, and its relationship to colonialism.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh review – the final instalment of an extraordinary trilogy". The Guardian. 5 June 2015. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 Sharma, Saloni (26 May 2015). "Amitav Ghosh's Ibis trilogy: The story so far". Quartz. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 "'Flood of Fire' brings the astounding, exceptional 'Ibis Trilogy' to a close". Christian Science Monitor. 4 August 2015. ISSN   0882-7729 . Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "It's been a very intense process: Amitav Ghosh on Ibis Trilogy". Hindustan Times. 16 June 2015. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  5. 1 2 "Author Amitav Ghosh's epic trilogy ends in Hong Kong". South China Morning Post. 10 June 2015. Archived from the original on 18 November 2022. Retrieved 18 November 2022.
  6. 1 2 Trip, Culture (28 February 2013). "A Clash Of Civilizations: The Ibis Trilogy By Amitav Ghosh". Culture Trip. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  7. 1 2 Kumar, P. c (3 March 2017). "Free trade and the Opium Wars through the lens of Amitav Ghosh". The Hindu. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Vaidya, Anjali (29 August 2015). "The Final Installment of the Ibis Trilogy". Los Angeles Review of Books . Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Ziya Us Salam (6 June 2015). "'The trilogy is over'". The Hindu. Retrieved 17 May 2017.
  10. 1 2 "'Opium financed British rule in India'". 23 June 2008. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  11. ↑ "Amitav Ghosh and his Sea of Poppies". Radio Open Source. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  12. ↑ Guilhamon, Lise (2018). "The confluences of history and fiction in Amitav Ghosh's Ibis trilogy". Revue d'histoire du XIXe siècle. pp. 137–139.
  13. 1 2 Raimondi, Luca (28 October 2021). Land, River, Sea: The Articulated Space of the Indian Ocean in Amitav Ghosh's Ibis Trilogy. Brill. ISBN   978-90-04-36034-1.
  14. 1 2 3 4 Kertzer, Jon (4 March 2018). "Amitav Ghosh's zubben: Confluence of languages in the Ibis trilogy". Journal of Postcolonial Writing. 54 (2): 187–199. doi:10.1080/17449855.2017.1406393. ISSN   1744-9855. S2CID   165805953.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Anderson, Clare (5 December 2016). "Empire and Exile: Reflections on the Ibis Trilogy". The American Historical Review . 121 (5): 1523–1530. doi:10.1093/ahr/121.5.1523. hdl: 2381/38100 . Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  16. 1 2 3 Beretta, Carlotta (28 October 2021). A Sense of History: The Poetics of Opium in Amitav Ghosh's Ibis Trilogy. Brill. ISBN   978-90-04-36034-1.
  17. ↑ Shlachter, Zack (6 September 2011). "River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh". Paste Magazine . Retrieved 18 November 2022.
  18. ↑ Han, Stephanie (1 October 2013). "Amitav Ghosh's SEA OF POPPIES: Speaking Weird English". The Explicator. 71 (4): 298–301. doi:10.1080/00144940.2013.842150. ISSN   0014-4940. S2CID   161174005.
  19. ↑ Cowaloosur, Vedita (2 January 2015). "The Novels of Amitav Ghosh and the Integral Hegemony of Inglish". English Studies in Africa. 58 (1): 1–13. doi:10.1080/00138398.2015.1045157. ISSN   0013-8398. S2CID   161889294.
  20. ↑ Vincent, Suhasini (June 2018). "An Eco-Critical Analysis of Climate Change and the Unthinkable in Amitav Ghosh's Fiction and Non-Fiction". Humanities. 7 (2): 59. doi: 10.3390/h7020059 . ISSN   2076-0787.
  21. ↑ Vandertop, Caitlin (4 July 2019). "Opium cities, carbon routes: World-ecological prehistory in Amitav Ghosh's Hong Kong". Journal of Postcolonial Writing. 55 (4): 527–540. doi:10.1080/17449855.2018.1562491. ISSN   1744-9855. S2CID   166091370.
  22. ↑ Frost, Mark R. (5 December 2016). "Amitav Ghosh and the Art of Thick Description: History in the Ibis Trilogy". The American Historical Review . 121 (5): 1537–1544. doi:10.1093/ahr/121.5.1537 . Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  23. ↑ Nair, Supriya (21 November 2012). "DSC Prize 2013 shortlist announced". mint. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  24. ↑ "Man Asian Literary Prize - News - Seven novels make Man Asian Literary Prize's strongest shortlist". 13 January 2012. Archived from the original on 13 January 2012. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  25. ↑ "Seven that stood out". The Hindu. 1 October 2011. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  26. ↑ "Celebrating writing at the 14th Raymond Crossword Book Award - Times of India". The Times of India. 30 November 2016. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  27. ↑ Hamid, Zubeda (16 January 2016). "Lit for Life: The Hindu Prize for 2015 goes to Easterine Kire". The Hindu . ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  28. ↑ Bhushan, Nyay (25 March 2019). "'Elizabeth' Helmer Shekhar Kapur to Direct 'Ibis Trilogy' Series for Endemol Shine". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  29. ↑ Ritman, Alex (4 December 2019). "'Vikings' Creator Michael Hirst to Pen 'Ibis Trilogy' Adaptation for Endemol Shine". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  30. ↑ "Amitav Ghosh's new non-fiction book 'Smoke and Ashes' to release in July 2023". The Times of India. 26 April 2023. ISSN   0971-8257 . Retrieved 1 August 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.