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BookDragon Blog

23 Dec / The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

Hungry TideWhen Firdous Bamji – a veteran narrator – reads Amitav Ghosh’s haunting novel in his ‘normal’ voice, he’s hardly memorable. But as soon as he ‘becomes’ the searching Piya, the sophisticated Kanai (“‘[s]ay it to rhyme with Hawaii'”), the contemplative Nirmal, the grounded Nilima, and the many, many other characters, Ghosh’s already lyrical, dazzling prose becomes truly transporting.

Piya, a young American marine biologist detached from her Indian heritage, and Kanai, a middle-aged Lothario translator from Delhi, meet over spilled tea on a train from Kolkata to Canning. They are both en route to the isolated Sundarbans, also known as the tide country, an archipelago of hundreds of islands in the Bay of Bengal held together by a vast mangrove forest. Piya hopes to secure the permits that will allow her to research rare river dolphins; Kanai has been summoned by his elderly Aunt Nilima to claim a package left for him by her late husband Nirmal.

What might have been a brief encounter lasts throughout the sweeping, wondrous novel. Piya’s first attempt at tracking her rare dolphin ends in near fatal disaster, and she’s rescued by a reticent local fisherman, Fokir, and his young son. They deliver her to Nilima, a ubiquitous presence in the unpredictable tide country. There on Lusibari, Piya finds Kanai poring over an aged notebook in which his late Uncle Nirmal recorded his experiences during the tumultuous, tragic clashes between the government and the refugee inhabitants of the tide country. Piya’s research in the surrounding rivers and other islands overlaps with Kanai’s quest to better understand his uncle’s troubled past, not to mention his own growing interest in Piya. Piya, in turn, finds herself strangely drawn to the nearly silent – and married – Fokir.

Ghosh remarkably manages to weave politics, history, folklore, research on rare animals and their delicate ecosystems, and even the devastating December 2004 tsunami into an exquisite, heart-thumping adventure … perfect company on the run, by the way. I confess that I so missed Kusum, Horen, Moyna, and the many others, that I now have Bamji reading Ali Sethi’s The Wish Maker to me. Stay tuned … literally.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2005

By Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, South Asian, South Asian American Tags > Amitav Ghosh, BookDragon, Family, Firdous Bamji, Friendship, Historical, Hungry Tide, Love, Natural disaster, Nature, Politics
9 Comments
  • Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis

    big fan of this book–“environmental refugees,” ghostly tigers, a searing critique of modernity, science and the “premodern” commingling, and a love triangle (rhombus?) to boot! plus students love it.

    Reply
    • SI BookDragon

      A love RHOMBUS! That’s TOOO perfectly clever! Hee hee ho ho!

      Question of the day: have you started his IBIS Trilogy yet??!!

      Reply
  • Claudia

    I love Ghosh, and this is my favorite of his books.

    Definitely read this book if you haven’t!

    Reply
    • SI BookDragon

      I’m about half-way through Sea of Poppies … and enjoying it immensely. I was trying to wait until the full trilogy was out (because I have NO such thing as patience, ahem) so I could read the whole set straight through, but I couldn’t wait (did I mention something about patience?).

      Have you read Glass Palace? I soooo appreciate his reaction to this 2001 Commonwealth Writers Prize nomination … it’s quoted in the linked post.

      Thanks for visiting BookDragon. Do come back soon! More Ghosh titles ahead, too!

      Reply
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