In September 1838 a storm blows up on the Indian Ocean and the Ibis, a ship carrying a consignment of convicts and indentured labourers from Calcutta to Mauritius, is caught up in the whirlwind. When the seas settle, five men have disappeared—two lascars, two convicts and one of the passengers. Did the same storm upend the fortunes of those aboard the Anahita, an opium carrier heading towards Canton? And what fate befell those aboard the Redruth, a sturdy two-masted brig heading East out of Cornwall? Was it the storm that altered their course or were the destinies of these passengers at the mercy of even more powerful forces?

On the grand scale of an historical epic, River of Smoke follows its storm-tossed characters to the crowded harbours of China. There, despite efforts of the emperor to stop them, ships from Europe and India exchange their cargoes of opium for boxes of tea, silk, porcelain and silver. Among them are Bahram Modi, a wealthy Parsi opium merchant out of Bombay, his estranged half-Chinese son Ah Fatt, the orphaned amateur botanist Paulette and a motley collection of others in pursuit of romance, riches and a legendary rare flower. All struggle to cope with their losses—and, for some, unimaginable freedoms—in the alleys and crowded waterways of nineteenth-century Canton.

As transporting and mesmerizing as an opiate induced dream, River of Smoke, book two in Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis trilogy, will soon be heralded as a masterpiece of twenty-first century literature.

Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and northern India. Educated in India and Britain, he now lives in New York. He studied in Delhi, Oxford and Egypt and has taught a number of Indian and American Universities. He is the author of three previous, highly acclaimed novels; The Calcutta Chromosome, the Shadow Lines and The Glass Palace. He is married and lives in New York.