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The Glass Palace
by Amitav Ghosh
Description:
Set in Burma during the British invasion of 1885, this masterly novel by Amitav Ghosh tells the story of Rajkumar, a poor boy lifted on the tides of political and social chaos, who goes on to create an empire in the Burmese teak forest. When soldiers force the royal family out of the Glass Palace and into exile, Rajkumar befriends Dolly, a young woman in the court of the Burmese Queen, whose love will shape his life. He cannot forget her, and years later, as a rich man, he goes in search of her. The struggles that have made Burma, India, and Malaya the places they are today are illuminated in this wonderful novel by the writer Chitra Divakaruni calls a master storyteller.
About The Author
Amitav Ghosh (born 11 July 1956) is an Indian-American author best known for his work in English fiction.Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta on 11 July 1956 to a Bengali Hindu family, to Lieutenant Colonel Shailendra Chandra Ghosh, a retired officer of the pre-independence Indian Army. His first job was at the Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi.
Ghosh lives in New York with his wife, Deborah Baker, author of the Laura Riding biography In Extremis: The Life of Laura Riding (1993) and a senior editor at Little, Brown and Company. They have two adult children, Lila and Nayan, who both work in the finance industry in New York. He has been a fellow at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta and Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum. In 1999, Ghosh joined the faculty at Queens College, City University of New York, as Distinguished Professor in Comparative literature. He has also been a visiting professor at the English department of Harvard University since 2005. Ghosh subsequently returned to India began working on the Ibis trilogy which includes Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire (published May 2015).
He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Indian government in 2007. In 2009, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2015 Ghosh was named a Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow.
Skryf Review
Amitav Ghosh devoted five years of his life to the travel, research, and writing required to tell this story. It follows the mingled fates of three families and three countries–Burma, India, and Malaya, from 1885 through the mid-1990s. The story begins with the British takeover of the kingdom of Burma as its king and queen are exiled to a remote compound in India. Through the lives of the orphan Rajkumar, his mentor Saya John, the girl Dolly, and her friend Uma, this sweeping tale explores the intricacies of colonialism, wars, divided loyalties, race relations, and the exploitation of subjugated peoples and their natural resources. The complexity of this work is astounding. Ghosh displays a deep understanding of local cultures and sentiments as well as of world history and politics. It’s a challenging read with a few dry patches in the early pages, becoming progressively more exciting and touching. The Glass Palace resembles less a contemporary American plot-driven novel, than a sprawling work like Dos Passos’ USA or a Greek epic. This is a major accomplishment from an important writer, worth reading if only for a greater understanding of Burmese and Indian history, and for a great thinker’s perspective on the problems of colonialism and post-colonialism.