Sea of Poppies

　　印度作家Amitav Ghosh的《罌粟海》（Sea of Poppies）入圍2008年布克獎決選。

　　一群烏合之眾在同一艘船上準備要前往中國，打那個十九世紀的鴉片戰爭。這群人裡有破產的酋長，部落寡婦，混血兒，不是水手，就是罪犯，或要偷渡的傢伙。在這個殖民動盪時期，命運把這些人的故事交織在一起，發展成一段跨越大陸、種族、世代的故事。

　　At the heart of this vibrant saga is a vast ship, the Ibis. The ship's destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean; its purpose is to fight China's vicious nineteenth-century Opium Wars. As for the crew, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts.

　　In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown a diverse cast of Indians and Westerners together on board, from a bankrupt raja to a widowed tribeswoman, from a mulatto American freedman to a freespirited French orphan. As their old family ties are washed away, they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais, or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races, and generations.

　　The first in an epic trilogy, this historical adventure spans the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling high seas, the backstreets of Canton. But it is the panorama of characters, whose diaspora encap sulates the vexed colonial history of the East itself, that makes Sea of Poppies so breathtakingly alive--a masterpiece from one of the world's finest novelists.