Ghosh was born in Calcutta on July 11, 1956, to Lieutenant Colonel Shailendra Chandra Ghosh, a

retired officer of the pre-independence Indian Army, and was educated at The Doon School; St.
Stephen's College, Delhi, Delhi University, India; the Delhi School of Economics and St Edmund Hall,
Oxford, where he was awarded a D. Phil. in social anthropology under the supervision of Peter
Lienhardt. His first job was at theIndian Express newspaper in New Delhi.[2]

Ghosh lives in New York with his wife, Deborah Baker, author of the Laura Riding biography In
Extremis: The Life of Laura Riding (1993) and a senior editor at Little, Brown and Company. They
have two children, Lila and Nayan. He has been a Fellow at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences,
Calcutta and Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum. In 1999, Ghosh joined the faculty
at Queens College, City University of New York, as Distinguished Professor in Comparative
Literature. He has also been a visiting professor to the English department of Harvard University since
2005. Ghosh subsequently returned to India began working on the Ibis trilogy, of which two volumes
have been published to date, Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke.

He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Indian government in 2007.[3] In 2009, he was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.[4]

Work[edit]
Ghosh is the author of The Circle of Reason (his 1986 debut novel), The Shadow Lines (1988), The
Calcutta Chromosome (1995), The Glass Palace (2000), The Hungry Tide (2004), and Sea of
Poppies (2008), the first volume of The Ibis trilogy, set in the 1830s, just before the Opium War, which
encapsulates the colonial history of the East. Ghosh's latest work of fiction is River of Smoke (2011),
the second volume of The Ibis trilogy. Most of his works deals with an historical setting, especially in
the context of Indian Ocean world. In an interview with Mahmood Kooria, he said:

"It was not intentional, but sometimes things are intentional without being intentional. Though it was
never part of a planned venture and did not begin as a conscious project, I realise in hindsight that
this is really what always interested me most: the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean,
and the connections and the cross-connections between these regions." [5]

Awards and recognitions[edit]

The Circle of Reason won the Prix Médicis étranger, one of France's top literary awards.[6] The
Shadow Lines won the Sahitya Akademi Award & the Ananda Puraskar.[7][8] The Calcutta
Chromosome won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for 1997.[9] Sea of Poppies was shortlisted for the
2008 Man Booker Prize.[10] It was the co-winner of the Vodafone Crossword Book Award in 2009, as
well as co-winner of the 2010 Dan David Prize.[11] River of Smoke was shortlisted for Man Asian
Literary Prize 2011.

Ghosh famously withdrew his novel The Glass Palace from consideration for Commonwealth Writers'
Prize, where it had been awarded the Best Novel in Eurasian section, citing his objections to the term
"Commonwealth" and the unfairness of the English-language requirement specified in the
rules.[12] Subsequently, he landed in controversy over his acceptance of the Israeli literary award, the
$1 million Dan David Prize.[13]

Ghosh's notable non-fiction writings are In an Antique Land (1992), Dancing in Cambodia and At
Large in Burma (1998), Countdown (1999), and The Imam and the Indian (2002, a large collection of
essays on different themes such as fundamentalism, history of the novel, Egyptian culture,
and literature).

Bibliography[edit]

Novels Non-Fiction

 The Circle of Reason (1986)  In an Antique Land (1992)

 The Shadow Lines (1988)  Dancing in Cambodia and At Large in Burma (1
 The Calcutta Chromosome (1995)  Countdown (1999)
 The Glass Palace (2000)  The Imam and the Indian (2002; Essays)
 The Hungry Tide (2005)  Incendiary Circumstances (2006; Essays)
 Sea of Poppies (2008)
 River of Smoke (2011)
 Flood of Fire (2015)
References[edit]

1. ^ Jump up to:a b Ghosh, Amitav, Encyclopædia Britannica

2. Jump up^ [1][dead link]

3. Jump up^ [2][dead link]

4. Jump up^ "Royal Society of Literature All Fellows". Royal Society of Literature. Retrieved 8 August

2010.

5. Jump up^ Mahmood Kooria (2012). Between the Walls of Archives and Horizons of Imagination:

An Interview with Amitav Ghosh. Itinerario, 36, p. 10

6. Jump up^ "Amitav Ghosh re-emerges with Sea of Poppies". The Hindu (Chennai, India). May 24,

2008.

7. Jump up^ "Amitav Ghosh". Fantasticfiction.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-05-28.

8. Jump up^ "Sahitya Academy Awards : English Books & Authors". Indiapicks.com. Retrieved 2012-05-

28.

9. Jump up^ "Arthur C. Clarke Award |". Clarkeaward.com. Retrieved 2012-05-28.

10. Jump up^ "First-timers seeking Booker glory". BBC News. September 9, 2008.

11. Jump up^ Laureates 2010 - 2010 Present - Literature: Rendition of the 20th Century - Amitav Ghosh

12. Jump up^ Wild West at the London Book Fair| The Guardian
 13. Jump up^ Amitav Ghosh lands in controversy over Israeli literary award

External links[edit]

Wikiquote has a collection

of quotations related
to: Amitav Ghosh

 Philosophy & Politics of science mutation in Amitav Ghoshs The Calcutta Chromosome
 Official website
 Excerpt from River of Smoke in Guernica Magazine
 Sea of Poppies at Farrar, Straus and Giroux site
 Amitav Ghosh in Emory University Site
 Interview with Amitav Ghosh on CNN-IBN/ibnlive.com on his book Sea of Poppies
 Amitav Ghosh's Blog on Indipepal

[hide]

 V

 T

 E

Works by Amitav Ghosh

 The Circle of Reason (1986)

 The Shadow Lines (1988)

 The Calcutta Chromosome (1995)


Novels The Glass Palace (2000)

 The Hungry Tide (2004)

 Sea of Poppies (2008)

 River of Smoke (2011)

 In an Antique Land (1992)

 Dancing in Cambodia and At Large in Burma (1998)


Non-Fiction & Essays Countdown (1999)

 The Imam and the Indian (2002)

 Incendiary Circumstances (2006)

 WorldCat

 VIAF: 76356050
Authority control
 LCCN: n85027450

 ISNI: 0000 0003 5507 7665

  GND: 104130482

 BNF: cb12161026s

Categories:
 1956 births
 Living people
 Indian emigrants to the United States
 Indian novelists
 People from Kolkata
 The Doon School alumni
 Bengali writers
 Harvard University staff
 American male writers
 American people of Indian descent
 Recipients of the Padma Shri
 Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in English
 Alumni of St Edmund Hall, Oxford
 St. Stephen's College, Delhi alumni
 Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
 Prix Médicis étranger winners
 University of Delhi alumni