The Shadow Lines

Opening in Calcutta in the 1960s, Amitav Ghosh's radiant second novel follows two families -- one English, one Bengali -- as their lives intertwine in tragic and comic ways. The narrator, Indian born and English educated, traces events back and forth in time, from the outbreak of World War II to the late twentieth century, through years of Bengali partition and violence, observing the ways in which political events invade private lives.

A powerful and lyrical work by a writer of vision and imagination, Shadow Lines is the story of Jessie Argyle, born in the remote East Kimberley and taken from her Aboriginal family at the age of five, and Edward Smith, a young Englishman escaping the rigid strictures of London. In a society deeply divided on racial lines, Edward and Jessie met, fell in love and, against strong opposition, eventually married. Despite unrelenting surveillance and harassment, the Smith home was a centre for Aboriginal cultural and social life for over thirty years.

The Shadow Lines Is A Highly Innovative, Complex And Celebrated Novel Of Amitav Ghosh. Published In 1988, It Received The Prestigious Sahitya Academy Award In The Following Year. Not Only Literary Critics But Also Some Noted Litterateurs Have Acclaimed It For What It Has Been Able To Achieve As A Work Of Art. Its Focus Is A Fact Of History, The Post-Partition Scenario Of Violence; But Its Overall Form Is A Subtle Interweaving Of Fact, Fiction And Reminiscence.It Is A Novel In Which Amitav Ghosh Has Been Able To Realise His Artistic Conception Through An Art Form, Which Is Cohesive. However, It Remains Somewhat Inaccessible To Some Readers; They Are, Particularly, Mystified By Its Non-Linear Mode. This Volume Of Critical Essays On The Shadow Lines Is Being Presented In The Hope That It Will Enable The Reader To Gain An Insight Into The Meaning And Structure Of The Novel. In The First Part Of The Book, The Contributors Bring Out The Various Aspects/Elements Of The Novel. The Second Part Has Essays, Which Look At The Novel From Some Current Critical Perspectives Feminist, Post-Colonial And Historicist But The Emphasis Of These Essays Is Upon Practice And Not Theory. The Idea Is That The Reader Learns About A Specific Approach By Seeing It Applied To The The Shadow Lines. The Third Part Has A Single But Significant Essay The Shadow Lines In Context Which Relates The Novel To Ghosh S Other Works, Both Fiction And Non-Fiction. Though The Book Is Primarily Addressed To The Student, It Is Hoped That It Will Interest The Common Discernible Reader As Well.

A New York Times Notable Book: A policeman chases a falsely accused man on a wild journey around the world in this “utterly involving” novel (The Sunday Times). When eight-year-old Nachiketa Bose first arrives in the East Bengali village of Lalpukur, he receives the name Alu—potato—for the size and shape of his extraordinary head. His uncle Balaram, the local schoolmaster and phrenology enthusiast, sends Alu to apprentice as a weaver, and the boy soon surpasses the skill of his master. But when a tragic bombing leaves Alu suspected of terrorism, he flees across India to Bombay and the Arabian Sea, followed all the way by the dogged policeman—and avid ornithologist—Jyoti Das. From East Bengal to the Persian Gulf and North Africa, Amitav Ghosh’s wild and extraordinary novel “follows in the footsteps of magical realists like Gabriel García Márquez and Salman Rushdie” (The New York Times Book Review). “A novelist of dazzling ingenuity.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A Scheherezade effortlessly spinning tales within tales, the possessor of a strong narrative voice quite like no other.” —Newsday “Ghosh’s writing soars, producing electric images.” —The Baltimore Sun “A wonderful mix of magic and horror, wit and curiosity . . . Ghosh has really woven a fresh world for us to visit.” —Providence Sunday Journal

A dystopian novel for the digital age, The Word Exchange offers an inventive, suspenseful, and decidedly original vision of the dangers of technology and of the enduring power of the printed word. In the not-so-distant future, the forecasted “death of print” has become a reality. Bookstores, libraries, newspapers, and magazines are things of the past, and we spend our time glued to handheld devices called Memes that not only keep us in constant communication but also have become so intuitive that they hail us cabs before we leave our offices, order takeout at the first growl of a hungry stomach, and even create and sell language itself in a marketplace called the Word Exchange. Anana Johnson works with her father, Doug, at the North American Dictionary of the English Language (NADEL), where Doug is hard at work on the last edition that will ever be printed. Doug is a staunchly anti-Meme, anti-tech intellectual who fondly remembers the days when people used email (everything now is text or videoconference) to communicate—or even actually spoke to one another, for that matter. One evening, Doug disappears from the NADEL offices, leaving a single written clue: ALICE. It’s a code word he devised to signal if he ever fell into harm’s way. And thus begins Anana’s journey down the proverbial rabbit hole . . . Joined by Bart, her bookish NADEL colleague, Anana’s search for Doug will take her into dark basements and subterranean passageways; the stacks and reading rooms of the Mercantile Library; and secret meetings of the underground resistance, the Diachronic Society. As Anana penetrates the mystery of her father’s disappearance and a pandemic of decaying language called “word flu” spreads, The Word Exchange becomes a cautionary tale that is at once a technological thriller and a meditation on the high cultural costs of digital technology.

There is a reason why the sea is so often chosen for the setting of psychological thrillers - there is nowhere to escape to. Joseph Conrad returned to the ocean waves for 'The Shadow Line', which tells the story of a young captain trying to control and lead a ship for the first time - and the struggles that come with it! He is thrown into one crisis after another: provisions running low, his crew fighting malaria, and somebody hiding the medicine. Amid rumours of the previous captain's ghost haunting the ship, Conrad skillfully builds a claustrophobic, cloying atmosphere. Can the young captain hold his nerve and save the ship and the crew? This thrilling book is perfect for fans of 'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville and Ernest Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the Sea'. Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was a Polish-born author who left Poland in his teens to avoid enlistment in the Russian Army. He learned English aboard British ships and started writing in the language after settling in England. His most famous novel is ‘Heart of Darkness’ (1899), which was inspired by his experiences on the open sea. He also wrote the classic novels 'Lord Jim' and 'Nostromo'. Among countless film and TV adaptations of his work were 'Apocalypse Now', a Vietnam War movie based on 'Heart of Darkness', and 'The Secret Agent', starring Bob Hoskins and Patricia Arquette.

Sea of Poppies is a stunningly vibrant and intensely human work that confirms Amitav Ghosh's reputation as a master storyteller. At the heart of this epic saga is a vast ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean to the Mauritius Islands. As to the people on board, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval in the mid-nineteenth century, fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed village-woman, from a mulatto American freedman to a free-spirited European orphan. As they sail down the Hooghly and into the sea, their old family ties are washed away, and they view themselves as jahaj-bhais, or ship-brothers, who will build whole new lives for themselves in the remote islands where they are being taken. It is the beginning of an unlikely dynasty.