By Neena Bhandari
Sydney, 12.09.2001 (The Pioneer): Amitav Ghosh is a participant in The Age 2001 Melbourne Writers’ Festival, which begins today. After being delayed for more than 12 hours due to an engine problem on his Qantas flight from Mumbai to Sydney, Ghosh went straight to the dais at Stanton Library in North Sydney for a reading from his latest novel, The Glass Palace (HarperCollins), followed by another reading at Gleebooks.
The uncertainty surrounding his flight threw my interview schedule into disarray at least three times. However, when we finally managed to meet, Ghosh spoke at length about the years it takes to research his books, the craft of storytelling, the rewards of meeting genuinely interested readers, colonial history and the growing number of contemporary Asian authors writing about it, and what it takes to balance professional and personal life.