Around the time we shared a book review of Amitav Ghosh's most recent work he gave a lecture about the Banda Islands, explaining the relationship between nutmeg and our current challenges related to climate change. It includes conversation with his host, a professor of creative writing, who draws out of Ghosh on his writing process. But the best part of the lecture is about half way through, when Ghosh talks about the agency of botanicals, a topic that I first encountered in the writings of Michael Pollan. Thanks to Rhoda Feng for giving Ghosh's book another review, which led me to find the video above:

A SMALL BUT INCREDIBLY VALUABLE NUT

At the end of Amitav Ghosh's SEA OF POPPIES (2008), a character reflects on how her life has been governed not by the sign of Saturn but by the poppy seed. Offering a seed to her lover, she says: 'Here, taste it. It is the star that took us from our homes and put us on this ship. It is the planet that rules our destiny.' SEA OF POPPIES is part of the Ibis trilogy by Ghosh – followed by RIVER OF SMOKE (2011) and FLOOD OF FIRE (2015) – about the nineteenth-century Anglo-Chinese Opium Wars. Read more of this post