Opening in Calcutta in the 1960s, Amitav Ghosh's radiant second novel follows two families — one English, one Bengali — as their lives intertwine in tragic and comic ways. The narrator, Indian born and English educated, traces events back and forth in time, from the outbreak of World War II to the late twentieth century, through years of Bengali partition and violence, observing the ways in which political events invade private lives.

Writer and anthropologist Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in 1956 and spent his childhood in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and northern India. He studied in Delhi, Oxford and Egypt, and has taught in various Indian and American universities. He is the author of three books: “The Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines” and “In An Antique Land” and has written for “The New Yorker, Granta, The New Republic” and “The New York Times.” Mr. Ghosh and his wife, Deborah Baker, live in New York with their two children.