Published Paper Details:

Amitav Ghosh�s novel River of Smoke belongs to the genre of the historical fiction. With the help of different narrative strategies, Amitav Ghosh in this novel has written history that covers the period of opium trade in Canton in 1838. The story is about the struggle of Manchu Empire against the British Empire who made war on China in the name of free trade. Ghosh has re-investing past through using different narratology devices while presenting nation�s history. He shows that memory, interior monologue, �Stream of Consciousness�, authentic and official voice of historical personal, original documentation edicts Canton Journals, Hukam namas, proclamation, translators, letters, painting and drawing etc. to present Opium war period in Canton. The novel moves in flash back in non-chronological order. There are analeptic movements, embedded stories, characterized by fragmented sequences, ellipsis, digression and jumbled chronology. The narrative is presented through third person omnipresent narrator along with person character narrator. The point of views from which the story is told keeps on changing. Different perspectives of the colonized, the downtrodden, the oppressed, the sufferers, the marginals, of the colonizers. This shifting focalization also helps to present vividly the history of opium war period in Canton.