Ghosh is the author of "The Circle of Reason" (his 1986 debut novel), "The Shadow Lines" (1988), "The Calcutta Chromosome" (1995), "The Glass Palace" (2000), "The Hungry Tide" (2004), and "Sea of Poppies" (2008), the first volume of "The Ibis trilogy", set in the 1830s, just before the Opium War, which encapsulates the colonial history of the East. Ghosh's "River of Smoke" (2011), is the second volume of "The Ibis" trilogy. The third, "Flood of Fire", completing the trilogy, was published 28 May 2015 to positive reviews. "The Shadow Lines" that won him the Sahitya Akademi Award "throws light on the phenomenon of communal violence and the way its roots have spread deeply and widely in the collective psyche of the Indian subcontinent". Most of his work deals with historical settings, especially in the Indian Ocean periphery. In an interview with Mahmood Kooria, he said: "It was not intentional, but sometimes things are intentional without being intentional. Though it was never part of a planned venture and did not begin as a conscious project, I realise in hindsight that this is really what always interested me most: the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the connections and the cross-connections between these regions."