Indian Writing in English has proliferated over the last few decades and has made a huge impact on English readers. Not only do the works of Indian authors writing in English find a place on the bestseller list, they are also receiving critical acclaim across the world. One of the most prolific postcolonial writers writing today, Amitav Ghosh has received many awards: The Circle of Reason winning the Prix Medici Etranger (one of France's top literary award), The Shadow Lines winning the Sahitya Akademi Award, and The Calcutta Chromosome bagging the Arthur C. Clarke Award for 1997. His later novels, Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire showcase his capacity for epic narration, with each of these texts in the Ibis series, exploring the layered dimensions of identity and cultural form.Now in its second edition, this book offers an anthology of critical essays, and deals with fictional as well as non-fictional works by Amitav Ghosh. It focuses on Ghosh's idea and theory of the novel, postcolonial rationality in The Circle of Reason, nationalism in the context of partition in The Shadow Lines, and the East-West encounter in The Calcutta Chromosome. Besides, it also discusses power structure operating within the narrative of The Glass Palace, and the question of space, identity and cultural difference in The Hungry Tide.

Contents

Preface
Preface to the First Edition
Acknowledge

1.Amitav Ghosh, Modernity and the Theory of the Novel--Bibhash Choudhury
2.Police and Post colonial Rationality in Amitav Ghosh's The Circle of Reason

3.National Allegory and Partition in The Shadow Lines--Thomas Fa Halloran
4.Postcolonial Melancholy : An Examination of Sadness in Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines --Ian Almond
5.The Calcutta Chromosome : Re-reading Western Cultural Hegemony - Isabella Brusschi
6.In an Antique Land : A Fragmentary History of the Indian Ocean --Claire Chambers
7.The Suave Steps of Memory and Rebirth : Dancing in Cambodia, Stories in Stones, At Large in Burma--Andrea Duranti

8.Mapping of Power Discourse in The Glass Palace--N.K.Rajalakshmi
9.'You and Your Stories : Narrating the Histories of the Dispossessed in Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children -- Hywel Dix
10.Rethinking 'Diaspora': A Postcolonial Reading of The Hungry Tide and a fine Balance

11.The Cult of the Bomb : Amitav Ghosh's Countdown--Sandip AIN

12.Fraught with a Background : Identity and Cultural Legacy in Sea of Poppies -- Bibhash Choudhury

13.Sea of Poppies : The Myriad Shifts of Colonialism in Transit -- Prasenjit Das
14.Critical Theory, History and Fiction: A Reading of Amitav Ghosh's River of Smoke---Lalan Kishore Singh

15.From Recuperation to Enactment of History : Amitav Ghosh's Flood of Fire -- Sandip AIN