Sea of Poppies

At the heart of this epic saga, set just before the Opium Wars, is an old slaving-ship, The Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its crew a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts: from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed villager, from an evangelical English opium trader to a mixed-race American freedman. They all simply view themselves as jahaj-bhais - ship brothers - in this masterpiece from one of the world’s finest novelists.