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The Hungry Tide, Amitav Ghosh
HarperCollins
Reviewed by Heather Ramsay (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

When I picked up this book, I knew I was in for a good read for two reasons.

Firstly, I'm a fan of Indian writer Amitav Ghosh and, secondly, I'm involved in conservation efforts in India, and the Sunderbans region, where The Hungry Tide is set, is on my "must visit" list. This vast estuarine landscape of channels and islands at the Ganges Delta is home to many endangered animals, among them the Bengal tiger and Gangetic dolphins.

The central character is Piyali Roy, an American of Indian descent who is in the Sunderbans to study the rare orcaella, or river dolphin. In the opening chapter, she fleetingly meets Kanai Dutt, an urbane translator from Delhi who has reluctantly come to this remote backwater at the behest of his aunt. It's immediately obvious that their lives will become intertwined, and they do – but not quite in the way you'd expect.

The intricate threads of relationships and events, both past and present, are almost as complicated as the twisted braids of the Sunderbans itself. Through the journals of Kanai's deceased uncle, the dirty underbelly of recent history is exposed, as are the great tribal myths that are still passed down from generation to generation.

Living in this web of history and myth are characters who represent a good cross-section of Indian society, from the illiterate fisherman who possesses an innate wisdom about the area, to the sophisticated urban Indian, and the visitor seeking a connection with the land of her forebears. To the mix add a strong-willed Indian woman who has established a medical facility to treat and train the poor, and a former left-wing political activist, turned poet and a dreamer.

I like tidy outcomes, and often books that encompass many characters and themes leave me disappointed. Not so with The Hungry Tide. The varied strands of the story are cleverly linked through people and events, and the conclusion is entirely in keeping with the spirit of the book.