The Shadow Lines is a highly innovative, complex and celebrated novel of Amitav Ghosh. Published in 1988, it received the prestigious Sahitya Academy Award in the following year. Not only literary critics but also some noted litterateurs have acclaimed it for what it has been able to achieve as a work of art. Its focus is a fact of history, the post-partition scenario of violence; but its overall form is a subtle interweaving of fact, fiction and reminiscence. It is a novel in which Amitav Ghosh has been able to realise his artistic conception through an art form, which is cohesive. However, it remains somewhat inaccessible to some readers; they are, particularly, mystified by its non-linear mode.