Join us on Thursday, February 29 at 6:30 p.m. for a conversation with the award-winning author Amitav Ghosh. A recipient of India's highest literary award, Ghosh will discuss his latest book, Smoke and Ashes, which was named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Foreign Policy, Literary Hub, and The Millions. He will be in conversation with Princeton professor and former BBC journalist Razia Iqbal. Smoke and Ashes will be available for purchase on-site and a book signing will follow the event. This event is co-presented with the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA). 

Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism, and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, in Smoke and Ashes Amitav Ghosh reveals the role that one small plant, opium, had in making our world, now teetering on the edge of catastrophe. Our conversation with Ghosh will unpack these various elements and will be presented as part of Asia Society's COAL + ICE, a festival of culture to inspire action on climate change. Asia Society Museum will stay open until 6:30 p.m. for visitors to peruse the COAL + ICE exhibition before the program. 

On Smoke and Ashes 

“A scintillating and kaleidoscopic vision of opium’s role in the past several centuries of global history . . . Exquisitely written and packed with astonishing insight, this is a must-read.”

 — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Since the publication of The Great Derangement (2016), Ghosh has devoted his literary energies to the fight against global warming. It might seem like a David-and-Goliath encounter to most of us — but that is the very reason why one must jump in."

— Hindustan Times

In Smoke and Ashes, Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India, and China, as well as the world at large. The trade was engineered by the British Empire, which exported Indian opium to sell to China to redress their great trade imbalance, and its revenues were essential to the empire’s financial survival. Tracing the profits further, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world’s biggest corporations, of America’s most powerful families and prestigious institutions (from the Astors and Coolidges to the Ivy League), and of contemporary globalism itself.

Amitav Ghosh is the author of the bestselling Ibis trilogy, comprised of Sea of Poppies (short-listed for the 2008 Man Booker Prize), River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire. His other novels include The Circle of Reason, which won the Prix Médicis étranger, and The Glass Palace. He is the author of many works of nonfiction, including The Great Derangement: Climate Change and The Unthinkable and The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis. He holds two lifetime achievement awards and four honorary doctorates. In 2018, Ghosh became the first English-language writer to receive the Jnanpith Award, India's highest literary honor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Razia Iqbal has been a journalist with BBC News for more than thirty years, most recently, as the main anchor for Newshour which has millions of listeners on NPR stations in the US. She recently left the BBC to take up a full time role at the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. She is the John L Weinberg/Goldman Sachs Visiting Professor.