Sea Of Poppies is a stunningly vibrant and intensely human work that confirms Amitav Ghosh s reputation as a master storyteller. At the heart of this epic saga is a vast ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean to the Mauritius Islands. As to the people on board, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. In a time of colonial upheaval in the mid nineteenth century, fate has thrown together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed village woman, from a mulatto American freedman to a free spirited European orphan. As they sail down the Hooghly and into the sea, their old family ties are washed away and they view themselves as jahaj bhais, or ship brothers, who will build whole new lives for themselves in the remote islands where they are being taken. It is the beginning of an unlikely dynasty.