ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how the novel Sea of Poppies simultaneously globalises and de-Atlanticises the horrific histories of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, by putting in the context of other horrific histories instituted by the machineries of the global, colonialist, mercantile capitalism of the nineteenth century. It shows that while the novel sits squarely within the Indian Anglophone canon in its deployment of multiple literary forms emerging from disparate geographies, its representations of a subaltern maritime cosmopolitanism also problematises the default elite cosmopolitanism endemic to the Indian English novel. The chapter provides the novel in the context of the archive of slave narratives and neo-slave narratives, and shows how the text adapts and modifies the essential characteristics of neo-slave narratives to fit the requirements of the South Asian colonial context. The trans-Atlantic histories referenced by Amitav Ghosh's novel remind people that the Black Atlantic was a remarkably heterogenous zone, comprised of multiple nations, languages and regions.
