Amitav Ghosh - “We are living through an epochal geopolitical transition”
On how writing the Ibis Trilogy was a process of discovery, the coming multipolar world and the changes it will bring, and how literary fiction and non-fiction can help us understand the ecological crisis that we are facing
How did the idea for Smoke and Ashes take shape? You mention that you had also considered giving up on the project. Why was that?
As I explain in the book, I gave up on the project because it’s a sad and, in some ways, unedifying story. The reason I returned to it is because I felt that this history needs to be better known.
The narrative draws a historical link between the time period of the Opium Wars and the present day opioid epidemic in the West, almost reading like a history of Western capitalism beginning from the very contradictions inherent in the myth of ‘free trade’. Was that something that organically happened or was that the intention you began with?
Writing the Ibis Trilogy was a process of discovery for me. I didn’t really know very much about this history when I began writing the novels, but over time I was able to put together a lot of material. And it is indeed a story about the profound contradictions at the heart of the myth of ‘free trade’. What was truly surprising to me was the extent to which the opium trade was responsible for the birth of the modern, globalized world system. The number of corporations and financial institutions that are rooted in this history is truly staggering.
There are instances in the text where you address the writing of the Ibis Trilogy. You mention how certain assumptions you had made as an author in the process of composing it, such as the Parsi merchants’ encounter with China, were then revealed to be wrong, or the difficulty of engaging with what a soldier would feel during combat. Was Smoke and Ashes then also an attempt at providing certain insights into the challenges one encounters while undertaking the writing of literary works of historical fiction?
Yes, Smoke and Ashes, is, among other things, a reflection on the difficulties (and rewards) of writing historical fiction. It’s very hard to understand the circumstances under which people lived in the past. For example, if you step on to an 18th or 19th century sailing vessel you will see that living quarters for the sailors were incredibly small and cramped – how people managed to live in them for years on end is very difficult for us to understand today.
What also comes across through the narrative is the lack of and the need to address the absence of a separate linguistic domain, a vocabulary, to counter the current political and economic discourse that is inevitably Global North oriented. How do you feel this project may be taken forward?
It is true that the Global North has substantially shaped the language in which we talk about the past and present. But I think we are currently living through an epochal geopolitical transition – one that will re-shape not just the power relations between the West and the Rest, but also the vocabularies that are used to imagine and represent the global past (and present). We are now on the brink of a multipolar world system and this will change everything.
Archives, particularly those that had been kept and preserved as a means of taking forth the colonial project of knowledge production, are shown to be fraught with selective or, in some cases, inaccurate accounts of what actually transpired. How would you say the Ibis trilogy responded to these?
Colonial archives are fraught with selective or inaccurate accounts of what actually transpired. This is because they were often created and maintained by the colonizers, who had a vested interest in portraying themselves in a favourable light. A notable example is the use of the word ‘pacification’ in relation to colonial wars against indigenous resistance. This kind of vocabulary always needs to be contested.
What role do you perceive for literary fiction and non fiction in grappling with the current ecological scenario?
Literary fiction can help us to imagine new ways of being in the world, and to see the world from different perspectives. It can help us to understand the interconnectedness of all living things, and to see the ways in which our actions impact the planet. Non-fiction can provide us with the scientific knowledge and data that we need to understand the ecological crisis that we are facing. It can also help us to understand the different perspectives on the crisis, and to see the ways in which it is affecting different communities around the world. I believe that both literary fiction and non-fiction can help us to develop the empathy and understanding that we need to address the ecological crisis. They can help us to see the world through the eyes of others, and to understand the interconnectedness of all living things.
Simar Bhasin is an independent journalist.