What does one generation leave for the next: a home, a history or questions that remain unresolved? This question acquires fresh relevance as Amitav Ghosh entrusts an unpublished manuscript, Letter to My Grandson, to Norway’s Future Library, a literary project whose contributors’ works will remain unread until 2114. Submitted on 28 June 2026, the manuscript offers a timely reason to revisit Ghosh’s The Glass Palace, published in 2000. Spanning generations and geographies, the historical novel explores empire, exile, family, freedom and belonging, asking how the choices of one generation shape the lives of another. More than a quarter-century after its publication, the novel remains compelling, even as its ambitious conclusion struggles to resolve the many strands of its narrative.
Created by Scottish artist Katie Paterson, the Future Library invites one writer each year to contribute an unpublished work. The manuscripts are preserved in the Silent Room at the Deichman Bjorvika library in Oslo and will remain sealed until 2114, when they will be published together. By placing a work beyond the reach of contemporary readers, the project raises questions about literary legacy, the passage of time and what future generations might make of the present. Ghosh’s contribution brings these concerns into sharper focus, making The Glass Palace an apt novel to reconsider today.
For readers in India, the novel’s treatment of patriotism, freedom, family and belonging offers points of connection more than a quarter-century after publication. As Ghosh entrusts a manuscript to future readers, The Glass Palace invites those reading him today to consider what survives the passage of time, and what it means to inherit a history.
Thick books can be intimidating, especially when chapters are long and narratives span generations. At around 600 pages, Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace demands concentration and commitment. Yet despite its length, and the added challenge of reading it as an e-book, it remains compelling enough to be finished in less than a month.
The novel also reminds us that the value of reading does not necessarily lie in remembering every name, sentence or detail. Plots may survive only as outlines, while marked pages and underlined passages help reconstruct the experience. Perhaps what matters most, outside academic reading, is how a book makes its reader feel.
Set against the British annexation of Burma in 1885, The Glass Palace opens with the exile of King Thibaw and Queen Supayalat to Ratnagiri, India. From there, the story stretches across decades and geographies: Burma, now Myanmar; India; and Malaya, modern-day Malaysia, eventually reaching into the 1990s.
At its heart is Rajkumar, an orphaned boy who begins by working odd jobs at a roadside stall and rises to become a wealthy timber merchant. His entrepreneurial spirit earns the admiration of those around him. Then there is Dolly, whom he meets as a child in the royal household and reconnects with years later. Their eventual union feels less like a spoiler than an inevitability gently seeded into the narrative, although their relationship is not entirely convincing as a love story.
The novel contains many characters, perhaps too many, but Ghosh introduces them with clarity and space. Each is given a backstory, rhythm and purpose. The characters are sufficiently well-rounded to keep the narrative easy to follow, at least initially.
The women are particularly compelling. Queen Supayalat is fierce and politically aware. Dolly evolves quietly but resolutely from a young attendant into a woman with agency. Uma, the Collector’s wife in Ratnagiri, develops across the story, while Alison, her daughter, and even the woman briefly encountered running a food stall in the opening pages add further layers to the novel’s female world.
These women frequently possess greater emotional and moral clarity than their male counterparts. One line captures their strength and the attempts to contain it: “I just want you to be careful, Alison… not to be headstrong… not to be the woman you are, just for a while… to be cautious, to be quiet.”
The first three-quarters of The Glass Palace achieve a strong balance between historical detail and storytelling. Its descriptions are undeniably beautiful. The Glass Palace itself becomes visible; the intricacies of elephant logging become understandable; and the early days of photography in colonial South-east Asia feel immediate. The writing is lush, visual and immersive.
After a point, however, that density begins to slow the momentum. The narrative lingers over details when the story appears ready to move forward. Yet that impatience also shows how deeply the novel has secured its reader’s investment.
The final stretch is where the book falters most noticeably. The last hundred pages begin to feel as though the research has taken over the narrative, as if everything left unsaid must now be included. The closing pages are crammed with information as the author attempts to provide closure for every character. Some deaths are reduced to mere sentences, while parts of the history begin to resemble bullet-point narration.
The union of two senior characters near the end is particularly jarring. It arrives as a shock and feels like a forced attempt to add something to the plot. Uma’s great-granddaughter also gets an arc that does not fully convince, particularly in her sudden shift towards photography and documentation. In an otherwise organic narrative, the development feels slightly forced.
There are numerous open loops, and Ghosh appears determined to close every one of them, perhaps for the reader’s satisfaction. The result is an overdetermined, ‘full-circle’ quality that contrasts with the expansiveness of the earlier narrative. An ending can become the note that lingers most strongly, even when much of the book preceding it has been deeply enjoyable. Midway through The Glass Palace, the assessment might have been far more glowing; by the end, a certain exhaustion sets in.
The novel nevertheless tackles an extraordinary range of themes: colonialism, identity, exile, the moral complexities of Indians serving in the British Army, female friendships, motherhood, marriage, sacrifice and the idea of home across generations.
It also raises questions that continue beyond the final page. Does the book truly count as historical fiction? Why does Dolly marry Rajkumar? At what point does description become a deterrent to storytelling? Does the late intimacy between two senior characters add anything to the plot? Do expatriates find themselves where they belong, or where they do not belong? Why are certain characters, particularly Neel and Alison, allowed to die?
Several characters appear capable of carrying novels of their own. Arjun, Uma’s brother’s son and a soldier, could have filled an entire book, as could Dinu, Rajkumar’s son.
Ghosh convincingly inhabits a wide spectrum of lives: young and old, royal and ordinary, soldiers and civilians. The novel reportedly took several years to write, and its depth of research and attention to detail are evident throughout.
Beyond its historical sweep, The Glass Palace, which won the Grand Prize for Fiction at the 2001 Frankfurt eBook Award and was named one of The New York Times’ Notable Books of 2001, explores enduring questions about patriotism, freedom, love, loyalty and the quiet tensions within families.
One line captures both the ambition and the overwhelm of the novel: “Politics has invaded everything… spared nothing… religion, art, family… it has taken over everything… there is no escape from it… and yet, what could be more trivial in the end?”
That may be what The Glass Palace ultimately attempts to do: speak from every front and hold every truth at once, even at the risk of losing the reader a little along the way.
