"A stunning novel" following two familiesone British, one Bengalifrom the New York Timesbestselling author of Sea of Poppies (The New Republic).
Opening in Calcutta in the 1960s, Amitav Ghosh's radiant second novel follows an English family and a Bengali family as their lives intertwine across the generations in both tragic and comic ways. The narrator, Indian born and English educated, traces events back and forth in time, from the outbreak of World War II to the late twentieth century, through years of Bengali partition and violenceobserving the ways in which political events invade private livesin an "ambitious, funny, poignant" saga (A. K. Ramanujan).
"Amusing, sad, wise, and truly international in scope." The New York Times Book Review