By the Histories of Sea and Fiction in its Roar: Fathoming the Generic Development of Indian Sea-Fiction in Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies

Abstract

Indian literature has betrayed a strange indifference to sea-experience and sea-culture
as a subject of literary interest though it cannot overlook the repercussions of sea
voyages on Indian social, political and economic conditions specifically after
colonization. Consequently, nautical fiction as a category of writing can hardly be
traced in the history of Indian literature. Nautical fiction as a substantial body of writing
emerged from Anglo-American history of maritime experience. This paper is an
attempt to perceive Amitav Ghosh’s novel, Sea of Poppies as an Indian response to the
sub-genre. Due to the scarcity of Indian reference point, the paper has to anchor on the
western definition and categorization of sea fiction to evaluate the novel though much
emphasis has been given in the individuation of the author. The author has given a
freewheeling treatment to the genre, making a potpourri of several aspects together such
as history, commerce, girmitiya (indentured labor) transportation. Thus, his approach
to the genre evades any kind of narrow categorization.