Amitav Ghosh · 2000 · sea

Amitav Ghosh's sweeping 2000 novel, a family saga across Burma, India and Malaya. It opens in 1885 with the British conquest of Mandalay and the exile of Burma's last king to India, and follows the orphan Rajkumar from teak to rubber to ruin across three generations and a century of upheaval, ending with the desperate overland flight of refugees out of Burma during the Second World War.

1. 1
   Mandalay

   1885: British cannon fall on Mandalay, the Glass Palace is looted, and the orphan Rajkumar watches the last king of Burma led away.

2. 2
   Rangoon

   Down the Irrawaddy to Rangoon, where Rajkumar builds a fortune in teak.

3. 3
   Ratnagiri

   The royal family is shipped into exile across the sea, to a sleepy port town on the west coast of India.

4. 4
   Sungei Pattani

   The family's fortunes flow on to the rubber plantations of Malaya and the great estate at Morningside.

5. 5
   Rangoon

   Back to Burma, where a new war is coming and the Japanese advance out of the east.

6. 6
   Calcutta

   And the long refugee trek, a thousand miles over the mountains, fleeing the war for India.