How Amitav Ghosh foundered his way to the end of his trilogy

Ghosh, 58, has recently finished a monumental project, the Ibis trilogy of books, which took him more than 10 years to write. For a decade he lived mainly in a parallel universe of his own creation, several centuries back in time. “I was in a deep, deep tunnel for years and years and years. I really didn’t have any time or any energy to give to anything else, apart from my family.”