Sea of Poppies

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

This is my second book for Chunkster Challenge. I had intended to read it last year for the book club, but it just didn't happen so I've finally completed it for this year. At 468 pages it's a fairly quick read.
When I first read the book jacket about the slave ship, the Ibis, I was a little put off for some reason.
But once I got deeper into the book, I became intrigued by the story and the wide range of characters and social milieu. It's set in India, mid-nineteenth century, starting in the poppy fields along the Ganges inland from Calcutta. A peasant woman, Deeti, has a vision of a ship even though she's never seen the ocean or an ocean going ship.  Originating with that vision, Ghosh weaves together several different story lines including Deeti's, low-caste Kalua's, a disgraced raja Neel, a young Frenchwoman Paulette, and a young mixed race freedman from Boston Zachary.  There are other characters too who all play a part by ending up on the Ibis, going to Mauritius across the Indian Ocean.  The opium trade is an important part of the story and it's interesting to read how the British forced small Indian farmers to plant ever more opium to the point where people couldn't raise enough food to eat and faced starvation. That opium in turn was used to help ruin China's economy and initiate the decline which China is just now starting to recover from.
This book is first in a trilogy and ends in an ambivalent way.  We don't know what's become of our characters and hope that their stories will be continued in the next book, River of Smoke.  I enjoyed this book and hope to read the next installment.