India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
Sundarbans
Sundarbans (pronounced ) is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of the Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. It spans the area from the Baleswar River in Bangladesh's division of Khulna to the Hooghly R ...
, it follows an unlikely trio who travel up river together to find the rare
Irrawaddy dolphin
The Irrawaddy dolphin (''Orcaella brevirostris'') is a euryhaline species of oceanic dolphin found in scattered subpopulations near sea coasts and in estuaries and rivers in parts of the Bay of Bengal and Southeast Asia. It closely resembles the ...
. It won the 2004
Hutch Crossword Book Award
A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white- and black-shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answ ...
for Fiction.
Synopsis
Off the easternmost coast of India, in the
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line betwee ...
, lies the immense labyrinth of tiny islands known as the
Sundarbans
Sundarbans (pronounced ) is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of the Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. It spans the area from the Baleswar River in Bangladesh's division of Khulna to the Hooghly R ...
. For settlers here, life is precarious: attacks by deadly tigers are common, and the threat of eviction and consequent social unrest is ever present. Without warning, at any time, tidal floods rise and surge over the land, leaving devastation in their wake. In this place of vengeful beauty, the lives of three people from different worlds collide.
The main character, Piyali Roy, is a young
marine biologist
Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifi ...
of Bengali-Indian descent but identifying as stubbornly American. Raised in
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
La Jolla
La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood within the city of San Diego, California, United States, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781.
La Jolla is surrounded on ...
. She travels to the Sundarbans in search of a rare endangered
river dolphin
River dolphins are a polyphyletic group of fully aquatic mammals that reside exclusively in freshwater or brackish water. They are an informal grouping of dolphins, which itself is a paraphyletic group within the infraorder Cetacea. Extant riv ...
, ''
Orcaella brevirostris
The Irrawaddy dolphin (''Orcaella brevirostris'') is a euryhaline species of oceanic dolphin found in scattered subpopulations near sea coasts and in estuaries and rivers in parts of the Bay of Bengal and Southeast Asia. It closely resembles th ...
''. She meets Kanai Dutt, a translator and businessman, on the Kolkata Suburban Railway heading towards Port Canning, on her way to the Sundarbans. Upon her arrival, she hires a boat to look for the dolphins, but her journey begins with a disaster, when she is thrown from a boat into crocodile-infested waters. Rescue comes in the form of an illiterate young fisherman, Fokir. Although they have no language between them, Piya and Fokir are powerfully drawn to each other, sharing an uncanny instinct for the ways of the sea. Piya engages Fokir to help with her research and finds a translator in Kanai, whose idealistic aunt and uncle are longtime settlers in the Sundarbans. As the three of them explore the tidal backwaters, they are drawn unaware into the hidden undercurrents of this isolated world, where political turmoil exacts a personal toll that is every bit as powerful as the ravaging tide.
The Morichjhanpi massacre of 1978–79, when the government of West Bengal forcibly evicted thousands of Bengali refugees who had settled on the island, forms a background for some parts of the novel. The novel explores topics such as
humanism
Humanism is a philosophy, philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and Agency (philosophy), agency of Human, human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical in ...
and
environmentalism
Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks ...
, especially when they come into conflict.
Reception
Alfred Hickling gave the book a mixed review in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', saying describing it as "a Conradian expedition, and a Forster ish collision between western assumptions and Indian reality, which throws in some ''Indiana Jones''-style encounters with tigers and crocodiles" and concluded "Like the elusive appearances of the river dolphins, the pattern of the novel can occasionally seem erratic, but vigilance is rewarded." In ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'', Krishna Dutta compared the book to Manik Banerjee's ''The Boatman of Padma'' and
Samaresh Basu
Samaresh Basu (11 December 1924 – 12 March 1988) was a writer in modern Bengali literature, known for his versatility and vast range of themes. He wrote under the pen name ''Kalkut''. Basu was awarded the 1980 Sahitya Akademi Award in Bengal ...
's ''Ganga'', but was mixed on Ghosh's attempts to convey Indian cultural and linguistic references to a broad audience.
The novel won the 2004 Crossword Book Prize and was among the final nominees for the 2006
Kiriyama Prize
The Kiriyama Prize was an international literary award awarded to books about the Pacific Rim and South Asia. Its goal was to encourage greater understanding among the peoples and nations of the region. Established in 1996, the prize was last awa ...
. Saswat S. Das discussed the book as exploring themes of "home" and "homelessness" in a 2006 article in ''Indian Literature''. The book's title was referenced in a 2016 scientific article about
climate change in Bangladesh
Climate change in Bangladesh is a critical issue as the country is one of the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In the 2020 edition of Germanwatch's ''Climate Risk Index'', it ranked seventh in the list of countries most affect ...
Gosaba
Gosaba is a village and a gram panchayat within the jurisdiction of the Gosaba police station in the Gosaba CD block in the Canning subdivision of the South 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal.
History
Sir Daniel Mack ...