Amitav Ghosh

It took itself in that direction.

Well, obviously, there are these overlapping elements of biography.

Dean grows up in Calcutta, me too, and I'm in Brooklyn, and so is he.

But that part of it is just, as they say, to write what you know.

And I know Brooklyn, I know Calcutta, and I know some other places, like the Sundarban, which Dean also knows.

But apart from that, no, Dean's life is nothing like mine.

I mean, he's completely, he has his own life.

Nor would I say that his temperament is anything like mine.

So he's a completely different person.

Well, Dean is basically a chronicler.

You know, he's just like a living chronicle.

He's just recording what he sees.

That's not me at all.

I'm always out there, you know, finding things, reporting on things.

I began my career as a journalist.

So that's a very important part of my life and my practice.

The Sunduban is the world's largest mangrove forest.

It's the southern fringe of the Bengal Delta.

So it is an enormous forest of mangrove.

And mangrove forests are very different from any other kind of forest.