Amitav Ghosh at the Cambridge Public Library

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Amitav Ghosh—author of the bestselling Ibis Trilogy and the first English-language writer to win the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honor—for a discussion of his highly anticipated new novel, Ghost Eye. He will be joined in conversation by Garnette Cadogan—Tunney Lee Distinguished Lecturer in Urbanism at the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT, and editor-at-large for Nonstop Metropolis.

RSVP for free to this event or choose the "Book-Included" ticket to reserve a copy of Ghost Eye and pick it up at the event. Following the presentation will be a book signing.

Note: Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. Ticket holders who purchased a book-included ticket and are unable to attend the event will be able to pick up their book at Harvard Book Store up to 30 days following the event. This offer expires after 30 days. Please note we cannot guarantee signed copies will be available to ticket holders who do not attend the event.

Past and present collide in a novel about a girl who just might be a "case of the reincarnation type."

Varsha Gupta wants fish for lunch. Her family is shocked; 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, in 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 psychologist who has been investigating what are known as "cases of the reincarnation type" for years. But her understanding of the world is changed forever by Varsha's revelations.

Half a century later, Varsha's case file catches the attention of a group of environmental activists, and Shoma's nephew Dinu is drawn inexorably into their plans. As Dinu finds himself caught up in the search for Varsha, buried memories of his own past begin to surface.

Traveling between late 1960s Calcutta and present-day Brooklyn, Amitav Ghosh's Ghost-Eye is an urgent and expansive novel from one of our greatest living storytellers, about family, fate, and our fragile planet.

Amitav Ghosh is the author of the bestselling Ibis Trilogy, composed of Sea of Poppies (short-listed for the 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 also the author of many works of nonfiction, including The Great Derangement, The Nutmeg’s Curse, and Smoke and Ashes. In 2018, Ghosh became the first English-language writer to win the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Garnette Cadogan is the Tunney Lee Distinguished Lecturer in Urbanism at the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT. His work explores the promise and perils of urban life, the vitality and inequality of cities, and the beauty and challenges of the public realm. The editor-at-large for Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas (co-edited by Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro), he writes about urbanism, culture, and the arts for various publications, and is currently at work on a book on walking and the everyday life of cities.

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.

The Cambridge Public Library serves as a doorway to opportunity, self-development, and recreation for all its residents, and as a forum where they may share ideas, cultures, and resources among themselves and with people around the globe. Learn more at cambridgema.gov/cpl.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, United States

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