Through extraordinary first-hand accounts—including two pieces never published before in India—Amitav Ghosh presents a compelling chronicle of the turmoil of our times. ‘The Town by the Sea’ records his experiences in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands just days after the tsunami; and in ‘September 11’ he takes us back to that fateful day when he retrieved his young daughter from school in New York, sick with the knowledge that she will be marked by the same kind of tumult that has defined his own life.
`Dancing in Cambodia’ recreates the first-ever visit to Europe by a troupe of Cambodian dancers with King Sisowath, in 1906. Ghosh links this historic visit, celebrated by Rodin in a series of sketches, to the more recent history of the Khmer Rouge revolution. ‘Stories in Stones’ considers the iconic significance of Angkor Wat, reputedly the largest religious edifice in the world, as a symbol of Cambodian identity. An omnipresent image, it pervades virtually every area of the nation’s life—except religion—and Amitav Ghosh sets out to uncover stories, new and old, associated with the historic monument.
`At Large in Burma’, written after the author’s visits to the country in 1995–96, provides a window to one of the world’s most closed societies. Ghosh interviewed Aung San Suu Kyi, the personification of Burma’s democratic struggle, and also visited the camps of one of Burma’s many minorities fighting for independence, the Karenni.