Ghost-eye: A Novel

by Amitav Ghosh

English 336 pages 2 editions

Past and present collide in a novel about a girl who might just be a ‘case of the reincarnation type’ Varsha Gupta wants fish for her lunch. Her family can’t understand it; the three-year-old has never tasted fish in her life. The Guptas are strict vegetarians and don’t allow it inside their Calcutta mansion. But Varsha claims she can remember another life: a mud house by a river where she caught and cooked fish with a different mother. Perplexed, the Guptas turn to Dr Shoma Bose, a psychiatrist who has been investigating what are known as ‘cases of the reincarnation type’ for years. But Shoma’s understanding of the world is changed forever by Varsha’s revelations. Half a century later, when Varsha’s therapeutic case file catches the attention of a group of environmental activists, Shoma’s nephew Dinu is drawn inexorably into their plans. And as Dinu finds himself caught up in the search for Varsha, buried memories of his own past begin to surface. Travelling between late-sixties’ Calcutta and present-day Brooklyn, Ghost-Eye is an urgent and expansive novel from one of our greatest living storytellers, about family, fate and our fragile planet.