The Hungry Tide was published in 2005 and written by Amitav Ghosh (born 1956), an Indian writer known for his English-language novels. Ghosh has written nine novels, and has received multiple awards.
The Hungry Tide is set in the Sundarbans, a mangrove area near the Bay of Bengal. It focuses on two central characters, Piya Roy, an Indian-American marine biologist, and Kanai Dutt, an Indian translator and interpreter. The two meet on a train as Piya travels to conduct a survey of local dolphins and Kanai sets out to visit his aunt and read his late uncle's notebook. Prominent themes in the novel include language, the conflict between humankind and the natural world, the human cost of environmental protections, theory vs. practice, and education vs. experience.
The novel won India's Hutch Crossword Book Award and was a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize, given to books about the Pacific Rim or South Asia.
