India, Dec. 12 -- The past isn't ever behind us, in Amitav Ghosh's version of the world.

For him, these realms in which fact and make-believe are braided together form ever-present parallel dimensions of a kind, since no two versions are ever quite the same.

Ghosh's new book, Ghost-Eye, due for release on December 15, works to extend the idea of what constitutes our past, invoking concepts of reincarnation and past life.

At the heart of this narrative is Varsha, a three-year-old girl from a family of vegetarian Marwaris in Kolkata, who suddenly refuses to eat anything but fish, and begins to recall details of a previous life in the Sundarbans.

Eventually, the book circles back to the theme that occupies Ghosh most: the climate crisis....