Assignment on Contemporary Literature

This is the responses blog on Assignment submission on the paper on Contemporary literature in English.

Topic : The Climate Crisis in Gun Island

Author Introduction

Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. He studied in Delhi, Oxford, and Alexandria and is the author of The Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines, In An Antique Land, Dancing in Cambodia, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, and The Ibis Trilogy, consisting of Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire. His most recent book, The Great Derangement; Climate Change and the Unthinkable, a work of non-fiction, appeared in 2016.

The Circle of Reason was awarded France’s Prix Médicis in 1990, and The Shadow Lines won two prestigious Indian prizes the same year, the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Ananda Puraskar. The Calcutta Chromosome won the Arthur C. Clarke award in 1997 and The Glass Palace won the International e-Book Award at the Frankfurt book fair in 2001. In January 2005 The Hungry Tide was awarded the Crossword Book Prize, a major Indian award. His novel, Sea of Poppies (2008) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, in 2008 and was awarded the Crossword Book Prize and the India Plaza Golden Quill Award.

Amitav Ghosh's work has been translated into more than thirty languages and he has served on the juries of the Locarno and Venice film festivals. His essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, and The New York Times. They have been anthologized under The Imam and the Indian (Penguin Random House India) and Incendiary Circumstances (Houghton Mifflin, USA). The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, a work of non-fiction, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2016 and was given the inaugural Utah Award for the Environmental Humanities in 2018. 

Amitav Ghosh holds two Lifetime Achievement awards and four honorary doctorates. In 2007 he was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India's highest honors, by the President of India. In 2010 he was a joint winner, along with Margaret Atwood of a Dan David prize, and in 2011 he was awarded the Grand Prix of the Blue Metropolis festival in Montreal. In 2018 the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honor, was conferred on Amitav Ghosh. He was the first English-language writer to receive the award. In 2019 Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the most important global thinkers of the preceding decade. Amitav Ghosh's most recent novel, Gun Island, is due to be published in 2019.

The Climate Crisis in Amitav Ghosh's Novel Gun Island

The author of "Gun Island" believes that the way we tell stories needs to change in order to address the climate crisis accurately. The book follows a rare book dealer named Deen on a journey that blends myth and folklore with contemporary issues like animal migration and natural disasters. Along the way, he meets a variety of characters who highlight different aspects of the crisis. The story may be a bit chaotic, but it ultimately shows how migration has always been a part of human history and how we must address the current refugee crisis.

Gun Island is a novel by Amitav Ghosh that confronts the challenge of writing about climate change through the lens of magical realism. The novel tells the story of Deen, a rare book dealer living in Brooklyn, who is drawn back to his native Kolkata after hearing a Bengali legend about a merchant seeking refuge from the goddess of snakes. Along the way, Deen encounters various characters and experiences, including a glamorous Italian professor, Bengali refugees, and a marine biologist tracking the rise in stranded whales and dolphins. The novel blends ancient myth and folklore with contemporary issues, such as climate change and the displacement of people and animals. Ghosh challenges the limitations of realism and highlights the urgent need for new narratives that can accommodate the truth of our rapidly changing world.

It’s little surprise to find Ghosh playing fast and loose with conventions; his Ibis trilogy, set against the backdrop of the opium wars, was founded on puckish digression and operatic swoops between tragedy and comedy. Gun Island, too, is keen to play with its own ridiculousness; as Deen and the professor slowly disinter the likely origins of the novel’s founding myth, their grandiose speculations often call to mind the satirical portrayal of the academic world that one might find in a David Lodge novel. Turn the page, though, and a king cobra is about to strike, or a block of masonry to fall from a building and narrowly miss one or other of our principals.

Gun Island is a book about how everything in the world is connected, including humans, animals, myths, and climate change. It tells a story about a man named the Gun Merchant and how his myth connects to our world today, where we face climate-related disasters like floods, droughts, and wildfires. The book shows how these disasters force people and animals to move to new places, and how we can work together to create a better future. It gives us hope that we can make things better, instead of just talking about how bad things are.Gun Island projects unprecedented climatic conditions as the primary cause for these natural disasters. It becomes a clarion call for climate-induced migrations as it skillfully portrays people and entire communities being uprooted from their native land and the drastic changes in the migratory patterns of different species due to changing climes and warming waters. Instead of projecting warnings of impending doom and apocalypse Gun Island focuses on giving the readers hope for a better tomorrow.

The article discusses the challenge of reconciling land-based environmental ethics with human mobility in the context of anthropogenic climate change. The novel "Gun Island" by Amitav Ghosh is presented as a response to this challenge, using a Bengali myth to comment on migration in the context of climate change. The novel offers two parallel narratives: one involving a book dealer exploring the Gun Merchant legend, and the other following the migration of a fisherman and his lover from India to Venice due to social stressors exacerbated by climate change. The article highlights how the story of the Gun Merchant was engendered by the Little Ice Age of the seventeenth century, while its present-day revival as a legend is catalyzed by anthropogenic climate change. The article also notes how concerns of race, gender, and sexuality further complicate climate change migration.

Rafi at first wants to move to an Indian city where he might have greater job opportunities, but Tipu, who has links to dalals or human traffickers, persuades him to move to Europe as it would be easier for them to live there as a couple. Rafi and Tipu decide to move illegally, with the help of the dalals, from Bangladesh across the borders of India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, and Austria to Italy. But while crossing the Iran-Turkey border, Tipu is injured and has to take a detour through Egypt, from where he takes a boat to Sicily, where he is confronted by Italian border security guards. In the tussle between the migrants and the security forces, Ghosh contrasts the planetary nature of the migrants’ journey against the narrow place-based identity politics that the Italian government advocates. Situating the current European “migrant crisis” in the context of a fluid and continuous idea of migration dating back generations, Gun Island critiques the nation-state’s refusal to see the planet as a place for shared belonging grounded in ethics toward the other.

The article describes how the novel "Gun Island" blends ancient myths and legends with tales of illegal migration in the present to highlight the perennial saga of human migration caused by global climate breakdown. The illegal border crossing of people from the Sundarbans serves as an example of how environmental migration is seen as one of the most dramatic consequences of climate change. The article also notes how the self-willed yet socio-politically or environmentally enforced illegal migrations from diverse developing countries in the era of globalization imply a kind of renunciation of the past domination of authoritative colonizing countries in controlling human movement across borders. The social conflicts in Italy centered on the Blue Boat symbolize the ever-present refugee crisis that rapidly increases in the era of anthropogenic climate change.

Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh is a novel that explores the interconnections between various global crises, including climate change, environmental degradation, forced migration, and social inequality. The novel highlights how these issues are deeply interconnected and exacerbate each other, leading to a world that is increasingly unstable and precarious.

One of the main themes of the novel is the impact of climate change on human societies and the environment. Ghosh portrays how climate change is not just an abstract concept, but a real and immediate threat to the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, especially those living in low-lying areas like the Sundarbans. He shows how rising sea levels, freak cyclones, and other environmental disasters have devastating effects on the people living in these regions, leading to displacement, poverty, and social unrest.

Another important theme in the novel is the issue of forced migration and displacement. Ghosh portrays how political, economic, and environmental factors push people to leave their homes and seek refuge elsewhere. He depicts the experiences of refugees and undocumented migrants who are often forced to undertake dangerous journeys across land and sea, facing violence, exploitation, and discrimination along the way.

Through the use of magical realism, Ghosh blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction, highlighting the complex and interrelated nature of these issues. He shows how these crises are not just individual problems, but systemic ones that require collective action and cooperation. The novel thus serves as a powerful critique of the utilitarian attitude towards nature and the individualistic worldview that underpins global capitalism.

In conclusion, Gun Island is a compelling novel that offers a poignant and timely exploration of some of the most pressing global issues of our time. Ghosh's use of magical realism and storytelling creates a unique and thought-provoking narrative that challenges readers to confront the complex and interconnected nature of these crises and to take action toward building a more just and sustainable world.

In conclusion, Amitav Ghosh's Gun Island provides a powerful and nuanced portrayal of the complex and multifaceted crisis of climate change. Through his use of magical realism and storytelling, Ghosh brings to life the devastating impact of climate change on human societies and the environment, highlighting the urgent need for collective action and cooperation to address this global crisis.

The novel also exposes the underlying causes of climate change, including the utilitarian attitude towards nature and the social, economic, and political systems that perpetuate social inequality and environmental degradation. Ghosh's portrayal of the plight of refugees and undocumented migrants highlights the urgent need for a more compassionate and just approach to issues of forced migration and displacement.Overall, Gun Island serves as a powerful reminder of the urgent need for concerted action to address the global crisis of climate change. The novel offers a vision of hope and possibility, challenging readers to confront the interconnected nature of these issues and to work towards a more just and sustainable world for all.

Work cited

Bose, Trina, and Amrita Satapathy. “The Crisis of Climate and Immigration in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island.” Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, vol. 31, no. 2, 2021, pp. 473-489. [Database Container], https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2021-871879

Ghosh, Amitav, et al. “Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh review – climate and culture in crisis.” The Guardian, 5 June 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/05/gun-island-amitav-ghosh-review. Accessed 28 March 2023.

Francis, A. . Gun Island: A Tale of Myth, Migration and Climate Change. 2021.SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH, 9(9), 22–35. https://doi.org/10.24113/ijellh.v9i9.11163

Som, Tathagata. “The Place of the Planet: Climate Change and Migration in Amitav Ghosh's Gun Island.” NiCHE, 6 December 2021, https://niche-canada.org/2021/12/06/the-place-of-the-planet-climate-change-and-migration-in-amitav-ghoshs-gun-island/. Accessed 28 March 2023.

Luebering, J.E.. "Amitav Ghosh". Encyclopedia Britannica, 7 Jul. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Amitav-Ghosh. Accessed 28 March 2023.