Amitav Ghosh

The Hungry Tide is a very contemporary story of adventure and unlikely love, identity, and history, set in one of the most fascinating regions on the earth. Life is harsh in the Sundarbans, the treacherous islands in the Bay of Bengal where isolated inhabitants live in fear of drowning tides and man-eating tigers. Piya Roy is a young marine biologist, of Indian descent but stubbornly American, who has come here in search of a rare, endangered river dolphin. She enlists the aid of a local fisherman and a translator, and soon their fates on the waterways will be determined by the forces of nature and human folly.