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Wild Fictions
Essays on Literature, Empire, and the Environment
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2025
About this book
From the 2025 recipient of the Pak Kyongni Prize, often referred to as Korea’s Nobel Prize in Literature.
A collection of essays on themes central to Ghosh’s work: imperialism and decolonization, climate change, and the stories of ordinary people making lives amid these historical forces.
Wild Fictions brings together Amitav Ghosh’s extraordinary writings on subjects that have obsessed him over the last twenty-five years: literature and language; climate change and the environment; and human lives, travel, and discoveries. Threaded throughout the collection are his reflections on the spaces that we inhabit and how we occupy them. From the significance of the commodification of the clove to the diversity of the mangrove forests in Bengal and the radical fluidity of multilingualism, Wild Fictions is a powerful refutation of imperial violence, a fascinating exploration of the fictions we weave to absorb history, and a reminder of the importance of sensitivity and empathy.
With the combination of moral passion, intellectual curiosity, and literary elegance that defines his writing, Ghosh makes readers understand the world in new and urgent ways. Together, the pieces in Wild Fictions chart a course that allows us to heal our relationships and restore the delicate balance with the volatile landscapes to which we all belong.
A collection of essays on themes central to Ghosh’s work: imperialism and decolonization, climate change, and the stories of ordinary people making lives amid these historical forces.
Wild Fictions brings together Amitav Ghosh’s extraordinary writings on subjects that have obsessed him over the last twenty-five years: literature and language; climate change and the environment; and human lives, travel, and discoveries. Threaded throughout the collection are his reflections on the spaces that we inhabit and how we occupy them. From the significance of the commodification of the clove to the diversity of the mangrove forests in Bengal and the radical fluidity of multilingualism, Wild Fictions is a powerful refutation of imperial violence, a fascinating exploration of the fictions we weave to absorb history, and a reminder of the importance of sensitivity and empathy.
With the combination of moral passion, intellectual curiosity, and literary elegance that defines his writing, Ghosh makes readers understand the world in new and urgent ways. Together, the pieces in Wild Fictions chart a course that allows us to heal our relationships and restore the delicate balance with the volatile landscapes to which we all belong.
Reviews
“Readers new to Ghosh will find much to lead them to his major work, especially his subtle blend of personal reflection and political polemic.”
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Frontmatter
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Contents
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Introduction
ix - Climate Change and Environment
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Intro
1 -
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One The Great Uprooting: Migration and Displacement in an Age of Planetary Crisis
5 -
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Two Storm of Consequences
29 -
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Three Cyclone Nargis
34 -
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Four Folly in the Sundarbans?
38 -
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Five The Town by the Sea
45 -
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Six A Tragic Predicament
71 - Witnesses
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81 -
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Seven Santanu Das and the First World War
85 -
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Eight Abhi Le Baghdad
93 -
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Nine At 'Home and the World' in Iraq, 1915-17
123 -
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Ten Shared Sorrows: Indians and Armenians in the Prison Camps of Ras al-'Ain, 1916-18
143 -
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Eleven Of Panas and Forecastles : The Indian Ocean and Some Lost Languages of the Age of Sail
169 -
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Twelve Wordless Pasts: The Indian Exodus from Burma and the Writing of The Glass Palace
191 - Travel and Discovery
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213 -
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Thirteen Confessions of a Xenophile
215 -
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Fourteen The Mountains Are High and the Emperor Is Far Away
227 -
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Fifteen The Spice Islands
239 - Narratives
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261 -
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Sixteen The Well-Travelled Banyan
263 -
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Seventeen 11 September 2001
267 -
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Eighteen Wild Fictions
272 - Conversations
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297 -
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Nineteen Provincializing Europe: A Correspondence
299 -
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Twenty Imperial Denial
337 -
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Twenty-one Storytelling and the Spectrum of the Past
347 -
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Twenty-two Shashi Tharoor's An Era of Darkness
361 -
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Twenty-three Priya Satia's Time's Monster
370 - Presentations
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Intro
381 -
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Twenty-four The Making of In an Antique Land : India, Egypt and the Cairo Geniza
383 -
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Twenty-five Computers and Spinning Wheels
405 -
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Twenty-six The Way of A.K. Ramanujan
418 -
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Afterword
427 -
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Notes
433 -
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Index
470
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
November 19, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9780226845333
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9780226845333
Keywords for this book
Imperialism; Decolonization; Climate; India; Language; Environment; Essay; Globalization; Ecology; Anthropocene; Postcolonialism; Multilingualism; Bengal; Mangroves; Cloves; Commodification; Landscapes; Healing; Empathy; Ordinary; lives; Storytelling; History; Fiction; Colonialism; Violence; Occupation; Space; Reflection; Themes; Criticism; Cultural; studies; Environmentalism; Sustainability; Geopolitics; Anthropology; Social; commentary; Biodiversity; Global; south; Diaspora; Exploitation; change
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience