![]() ![]() Paulette, a feisty French orphan, stows away on the Ibis to escape the restricted life of a white woman in India. Kalua, a prodigiously strong member of the lower caste, rescues the higher-caste Deeti from ritual burning on the death of her egregious husband. He lays out multiple narrative lines, initially separate, that eventually conjoin on the Ibis, a schooner bound from Calcutta to China across the much-feared “Black Water.” Neel, the sophisticated raja of Raskhali, is convicted of a trumped-up forgery charge. Ghosh orchestrates his polyphonic saga with a composer’s fine touch. It’s 1838, and Britain is set on maintaining the opium trade between India and China as a buttress of its economic, political and cultural power. A historical novel crammed almost to the bursting point with incidents and characters, but Ghosh ( The Hungry Tide, 2005, etc.) deftly keeps everything under control. ![]()
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