SOURCE: A review of The Calcutta Chromosome, in World Literature Today, Vol. 71, No. 1, Winter, 1997, pp. 221–22.

In the following review, Sen offers a positive assessment of The Calcutta Chromosome.

The Calcutta Chromosome is Amitav Ghosh's fourth substantial work of prose. He has already written two novels, The Circle of Reason and The Shadow Lines, as well as a book of creative nonfiction, In an Antique Land, all of which have received widespread critical attention and praise. Those familiar with Ghosh's earlier work will at once recognize the macrocosmic links his latest work has with the earlier ones, not in terms of similarity (in fact, stylistically the novels are entirely dissimilar) but in terms of linking various landscapes and vocation. By training, Ghosh is a social anthropologist, and therefore it is not surprising that he brings to his art of writing an exactitude of construction and a clarity of language...