Transoceanic Perspectives in Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy

Abstract

“What can be more pertinent than an excellent, transoceanic reading of Amitav Ghosh's excellent, transoceanic trilogy? This study is significant not just for its fresh reading of Ghosh's novels but also its critical interventions in such pressing and topical matters as globalization.” —Tabish Khair, Associate Professor of English, Aarhus University, Denmark, and author of The Thing About Thugs (2010) “In this very timely addition to Indian Ocean studies, Martín-González provides a highly textured reading of Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy. The author masterfully locates the trilogy within the current focus on transoceanic studies by drawing on a multiplicity of disciplines without losing sight of Ghosh’s literary talent. This study is an exciting new slant on Ghosh’s work which poses pressing questions about the significance of cosmopolitanism in the Global South.” —Felicity Hand, Senior Lecturer of English, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, and editor of Durban Dialogues Dissected: An Analysis of Ashwin Singh's Plays (2020) Transoceanic Perspectives in Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy studies Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011) and Flood of Fire (2015) in relation to maritime criticism. Juan-José Martín-González draws upon the intersections between maritime criticism and postcolonial thought to provide, via an analysis of the Ibis trilogy, alternative insights into nationalism(s), cosmopolitanism and globalization. He shows that the Victorian age in its transoceanic dimension can be read as an era of proto-globalization that facilitates a materialist critique of the inequities of contemporary global neo-liberalism. The book argues that in order to maintain its critical sharpness, postcolonialism must re-direct its focus towards today’s most obvious legacy of nineteenth-century imperialism: capitalist globalization. Tracing the migrating characters who engage in transoceanic crossings through Victorian sea lanes in the Ibis trilogy, Martín-González explores how these dispossessed collectives made sense of their identities in the Victorian waterworlds and illustrates the political possibilities provided by the sea crossing and its fluid boundaries. Juan-José Martín-González is Research Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Málaga, Spain. He researches and publishes in the fields of maritime and migration studies, neo-Victorian fiction and postcolonialism.