Transoceanic Perspectives in Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy

<i>Transoceanic Perspectives in Amitav Ghosh’s </i>Ibis<i> Trilogy </i>studies Ghosh’s <i>Sea of Poppies </i>(2008) <i>River of Smoke </i>(2011) and <i>Flood of Fire </i>(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 <i>Ibis </i>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 <i>Ibis</i> 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.