The Glass Palace

A Shattered Kingdom’s Legacy

The Glass Palace opens amid the tumult of 1885, when the British annexation of Mandalay Palace shatters centuries of Burmese sovereignty. Young Rajkumar, a resourceful orphan, is swept into the chaos as he flees the city’s smoldering ruins alongside his devoted sister, Dolly. Their lives intertwine with that of Saya John, a charismatic teak merchant whose fortunes rise under colonial rule. Together, they witness the end of one world and the uneasy dawn of another—where loyalty is tested, identities are remade, and the gleaming promise of empire casts long, tangled shadows.

Across Empires and Generations

From the stifling heat of colonial Burma to the bustling streets of early twentieth-century Calcutta, and onward to the rubber plantations of Malaya, Ghosh’s panoramic narrative charts the fates of three families bound by commerce, kinship, and exile. As Rajkumar trades teak for opium, Dolly pursues education in a foreign land, and Saya John navigates both the tea auctions and the call for wartime resistance, the novel reveals how personal dreams collide with the inexorable forces of history. Love blooms in unexpected places—between star-crossed youths and beneath stifled silences—and endures even as the world convulses in two great wars.

Echoes in the Looking Glass

In this sweeping epic, the “glass palace” becomes a mirror reflecting the fragile beauty of human ambition and the price of empire’s glittering veneer. Ghosh weaves lyrical prose with meticulous research, illuminating how a single shard of history can refract countless lives. With each chapter, readers confront questions of memory, displacement, and the enduring power of hope amidst upheaval, discovering that the true palace lies not in walls of teak and glass, but in the resilient bonds we forge.

. Amitav Ghosh is an internationally acclaimed Indian author celebrated for his richly textured historical sagas, whose masterful storytelling bridges cultures and epochs, illuminating the enduring currents of human connection.