Amitav Ghosh (born 11 July 1956) is an Indian writer known for historical novels that range across India, Burma, China and the Indian Ocean, and for his non-fiction on climate change. His best-known books include The Shadow Lines, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide and the Ibis trilogy, which begins with Sea of Poppies. In 2018 he became the first writer in English to receive the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honour.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Amitav Ghosh |
| Born | 11 July 1956, Calcutta (now Kolkata), India |
| Age | 70 |
| Occupation | Novelist, essayist |
| Education | The Doon School; St. Stephen’s College, Delhi; Delhi School of Economics; University of Oxford (D.Phil. 1982) |
| Spouse | Deborah Baker |
| Children | 2 (Lila and Nayan) |
| Honours | Sahitya Akademi Award (1989), Padma Shri (2007), Jnanpith Award (2018) |
| Known for | The Shadow Lines, The Glass Palace, the Ibis trilogy |
Early Life
Ghosh was born in Calcutta into a Bengali family. His father was an army officer who later became a diplomat, and Ghosh grew up in India, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and Sri Lanka. He was educated at The Doon School in Dehradun and at St. Stephen’s College and the Delhi School of Economics. He earned a doctorate in social anthropology from Oxford in 1982, doing his fieldwork in a village in Egypt, and worked for a time as a journalist at The Indian Express in Delhi.
Career
His first novel, The Circle of Reason (1986), won a major French prize. The Shadow Lines (1988), about a family divided between Calcutta, Dhaka and London, won the Sahitya Akademi Award and is widely taught in Indian universities. In an Antique Land (1992) mixed his memories of Egypt with the story of a medieval Indian slave, and The Calcutta Chromosome (1995) won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction.
The Glass Palace (2000) follows several generations from the fall of the Burmese monarchy in 1885 to modern times. Ghosh withdrew it from the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, objecting to the idea of the “Commonwealth” and to the prize being limited to books in English. The Hungry Tide (2004) is set in the Sundarbans, the mangrove delta of Bengal.
Sea of Poppies (2008), shortlisted for the Booker Prize, River of Smoke (2011) and Flood of Fire (2015) tell the story of the opium trade between India and China in the 1830s and the people swept up in it.
In The Great Derangement (2016) Ghosh asked why literature and politics had failed to face up to climate change. He has continued the theme in the novel Gun Island (2019), in The Nutmeg’s Curse (2021) and in Smoke and Ashes (2023), a history of opium.
Personal Life
Ghosh is married to the American writer Deborah Baker, and they have two children, Lila and Nayan. He divides his time between Brooklyn in New York, Kolkata and Goa.
Awards and Honours
Selected Works
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Amitav Ghosh born?
Amitav Ghosh was born on 11 July 1956 in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India and is 70 years old.
What is Amitav Ghosh known for?
Known for: The Shadow Lines, The Glass Palace, the Ibis trilogy.
What honours has Amitav Ghosh received?
Sahitya Akademi Award (1989), Padma Shri (2007), Jnanpith Award (2018).
Featured image: Amitav Ghosh at an event in Tempe, Arizona, March 2017. Photo by Gage Skidmore, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
