The Concealed Histories Of Opium

In his latest book, writer Amitav Ghosh sheds light on the opium poppy and its role in the making and unmaking of the modern world

- Deepali Singh

There's a reason why Amitav Ghosh is celebrated as one of the most significant literary voices when it comes to climate crisis. Whether it is the conflict of climate change in Jungle Nama or The Nutmeg's Curse that discusses in great detail environmental changes, with focus on the Banda Islands, the Kolkata-born, Brooklyn-based writer has been at the forefront of acknowledging and addressing this pressing issue. His most famous work remains the Ibis Trilogy consisting of three novels where the story is set across the Indian Ocean region during the 1830s, leading to the First Opium War. Ghosh's other books including The Shadow Lines, The Glass Palace, Gun Island and The Nutmeg's Curse have stood out for their historical research and themes. Here's a writer who is not afraid to take a deep dive into histories of colonialism, diaspora, political struggles and communal violence. It is his attention to detail and curiosity about particular subjects which brings us to his latest book Smoke and Ashes. In the book, which is a travelogue, a memoir and an excursion into history all at once, Ghosh harks back to the research material he gathered while writing his famous trilogy from 2005 to 2015. At the heart of it lies a plant - the deceptively humble and harmles opium poppy which has grown from strength to strength, manifesting itself in the devastating opioid crisis that currently grips the globe. The book explores how under the aegis of the British Empire, India became the world's largest producer of opium between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the different conditions under which opium was produced in various regions, with lasting effects for those areas. Edited excerpts from a chat with the author:

Why did you feel the need to write this book? Tell us about the research that went into writing it?