The Hungry Tide

by Amitav Ghosh A multi-layered novel of place about the Sundarban archipelago, a wild maze of islands and waterways on the Bay of Bengal. Piyali Roy, an Indian-American marine biologist, travels across the Sundarbans in search of the once plentiful Irrawaddy dolphin. Kanai Dutt is a successful New Delhi businessman and interpreter, who has traveled to the region to retrieve his deceased uncle's journal, which recounts the history of the islands and the brutal eviction of a group of poor settlers that resulted from the government's overzealous conservation efforts. And Fokai is a local fisherman and father. In the course of their private quests and convergent stories, Ghosh explores the volatile interfaces between ecology, sociology and twentieth century politics.