In an Antique Land

In an Antique Land is subversive history in the guise of a traveller’s tale. Packed with anecdote and exuberant detail, it provides magical and intimate insights into Egypt from the Crusades to Operation Desert Storm. It also offers vivid glimpses of the many small, indistinguishable and intertwining histories of India and Egypt, Muslims and Hindus and Jews. This is another of Amitav Ghosh’s books that, characteristically, makes us rethink the political boundaries that divide up the world, and the generic boundaries that divide up narrative styles. With its deft and irreverent use of the devices of fiction, history, travel-writing and anthropology to create a single seamless work of the imagination, this book confirms that Amitav Ghosh is in a league of his own as an Indian writer of English prose.