Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2008: a stunningly vibrant novel from Amitav Ghosh.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008

'Sea of Poppies boasts a varied collection of characters to love and hate, and provides wonderfully detailed descriptions . . . utterly involving and piles on tension until the very last page' Sunday Times

At the heart of this epic saga, set just before the Opium Wars, is an old slaving-ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its crew a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts.

In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed villager, from an evangelical English opium trader to a mulatto American freedman. As their old family ties are washed away they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races and generations.

The vast sweep of this historical adventure spans the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling high seas, and the exotic backstreets of China. But it is the panorama of characters, whose diaspora encapsulates the vexed colonial history of the East itself, which makes Sea of Poppies so breathtakingly alive - a masterpiece from one of the world's finest novelists.

"Ripping post-colonial yarn . . . Ghosh spins a fine story with a quite irresistible flow, breathing exuberant life ... an absorbing vision" - Guardian

"This is a panoramic adventure story, with a Dickensian energy and scope" - Sunday Telegraph

"The fantastic Anglo-Asian language they speak is infectious, and the sombre yet uncertain conclusion leaves one eager for the second novel in the trilogy" - Daily Telegraph

"Massively entertaining and narratively compelling" - London Review of Books

"There can be fewer more exciting settings for a novel than a sea-tossed sailing ship ... Ghosh piles detail upon detail in a rumbustical adventure" - The Times