Alfred Hickling gave the book a mixed review in The Guardian, saying describing it as "a Conradian expedition, and a Forster ish collision between western assumptions and Indian reality, which throws in some Indiana Jones-style encounters with tigers and crocodiles" and concluded "Like the elusive appearances of the river dolphins, the pattern of the novel can occasionally seem erratic, but vigilance is rewarded."[1] In The Independent, Krishna Dutta compared the book to Manik Banerjee's The Boatman of Padma and Samaresh Basu's Ganga, but was mixed on Ghosh's attempts to convey Indian cultural and linguistic references to a broad audience.[2]
The novel won the 2004 Crossword Book Prize and was among the final nominees for the 2006 Kiriyama Prize.[3] Saswat S. Das discussed the book as exploring themes of "home" and "homelessness" in a 2006 article in Indian Literature.[4] The book's title was referenced in a 2016 scientific article about climate change in Bangladesh in Climate Change Economics.[5]
