Wayne Ashton: 2 books

A sensual love story set in 1967 in the bustling city of Chittagong, East Pakistan. It is a time of boom and ferment. A time when a household cook may dream of fame and fortune, a bearer brazenly spit in the drinks of oblivious sahibs, an ayah sublimely seduce a minisahib, and a letterwriter link the dead with the living.

Shifting between love affairs, friendships, and enmities of multiple generations, this rich and complex saga follows a life spent on the water as Carlos, an orphan living in a Spanish hacienda, runs away to sea. Sprawling in its themes and geography—from the Golfo de Valencia to Calcutta, from London...