Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh

Gun Island, Amitav Ghosh's most recent book, follows recognisable cross-cultural themes that were present in his past works. The world of animals and sea creatures, migration and diaspora, voyages on ships, and journeys by land and water are all included. Ghosh emphasises environmental concerns that have persisted from earlier works like The Hungry Tide and The Great Derangement, including climate change and the threat that chemical waste discharged into rivers by companies poses to fish.

Deen, a scholar and rare book collector, travels to West Bengal's Sunderbans from his home city of New York in the book Gun Island to investigate the legend of Bonduki Sada-gar, also known as "The Gun Merchant," a 17th-century trader who was persecuted by the snake-goddess Manasa Devi. After the book's publication, Ghosh said in a presentation in New Delhi that the merchant "was a trope for trade." "The conflict between profit and the world" is dramatised by the merchant and the deity. "Humans—driven, as was the Merchant, by the pursuit of profit—would recognise no restraint in relation to other living things," The goddess follows the merchant throughout the story to awaken him to other realities, such as the animal world.

Al-Bunduqevya, which is also the term for weapons, was Venice's previous Arabic name, according to what we've learned. According to Deen, Bonduki Sadagar's name did not possibly imply "the Gun Merchant" but rather "the Merchant who went to Venice." When Deen visits Venice to do more investigation on the Gun Merchant, he learns that a lot of Bangladeshis are being used as migrant workers who are not legally allowed to be there. Contrasted with the Gun Merchant's earlier, successful visit to Venice, their perilous trek across the Middle East and Africa and the fierce, even militant, hostility to their presence in the city by Italian authorities comprise a significant portion of the novel's second half.