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At the invitation of the Chancellor of The University of Oxford, Lord Patten of Barnes, the multi-award-winning Indian writer Amitav Ghosh talks to historian Professor Chris Clark about history and fiction. Ghosh is author of seven novels in English, most of which have a historical setting. His two most recent novels, the first parts of his Ibis Trilogy, are Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke. The trilogy is set against the backdrop of the 19th-century Chinese Opium Wars. The third and final instalment, Flood of Fire, is due for publication in the UK in May. It follows a range of characters from India to China through the outbreak of the First Opium War and China’s defeat to Britain’s seizure of Hong Kong.

Ghosh’s work has been translated into more than 20 languages. Among his many prestigious literary awards are France’s Prix Médicis for The Circle of Reason, the Arthur C Clarke award for The Calcutta Chromosome, and the Crossword Book Prize for The Hungry Tide and Sea of Poppies.

Clark is Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge with a particular interest in 19th-century German and European history.  He is author of the highly acclaimed The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.

FT interview with Amitav Ghosh.