Environmental Postcolonialism: A Literary Response is an academic investigation of the environmental repercussions of colonial destruction. This volume addresses the complex interplay between postcolonialism and environmental discourse through literature produced in the ex-colonies. This literature is read from the standpoint of ex-colonies within their human and non-human context. The primary objective of this volume is to scrutinize environmental concerns in the light of postcolonial theory, and so it examines works of art from the twin perspective of eco-criticism and postcolonialism which illuminates and underscores how colonizers destroyed and interfered with both nature and culture. Through discussing the intersecting layers of ecocriticism and postcolonial criticism, the volume gestures to new directions and generates a hopeful vision of a decolonized world.
Shubhanku Kochar is assistant professor at University School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi.
M. Anjum Khan is assistant professor of English in Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore.
Chapter 1: Introduction by Shubhanku Kochar and M. Anjum Khan
Chapter 2: "Transformation is the Rule of Life": Environment and the Search for Utopia in The Hungry Tide by Suzy Woltmann
Chapter 3: Cultural Nationalism and Sacred Groves of Kerala by Anupama Nayar
Chapter 4: Politics, Oil and Theatre in Africa by Stephen Ogheneruro Okpadah
Chapter 5: Through the Postcolonial Lens: Reading the Environment in Narratives from India’s North East by Kalpana Bora Barman
Chapter 6: “Aesthetics of Belonging”: Construction of a Postcolonial Landscape in Daud Kamal’s Poetry by Humaira Riaz
Chapter 7: I am a Tree Leaning: Neo-colonialism, Eco-consciousness and the Decolonized Self in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing by Anik Sarkar
Chapter 8: For Appearances Must Deceive: Misreading the Environment in Days and Nights in the Forest and its Cinematic Adaptation by Chinmaya Lal Thakur
Chapter 9: Postcolonial Ecology and Representation: Exploring ‘Ashani Sanket’ as an Eco-Film by Neepa Sarkar
Chapter 10: Land, Labor, and Family: The Impact of US Colonization on Puerto Rico in Esmeralda Santiago’s When I Was Puerto Rican by Renée Latchman
Chapter 11: ‘Coloniality’ of Humans and the Ecology: An Eco-critical Reading of Shubhangi Swarup’s Latitudes of Longing by Risha Baruah
Chapter 12: Women and Power: Digital Cameras in Postcolonial Caribbean Spaces in Literature by Denise M. Jarrett
Chapter 13: Nature and Resistance in Coetzee And Abani: The Transcoporeal In African Fiction by Puja SenMajumdar
Chapter 14: Colonialism, Capitalism and Nature: A Study of Alex Haley’s Roots and Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo’s Petals of Blood by Shivani Duggal
Chapter 15: Beyond the Dichotomy of Humans and Animals: Situating Ecology in Coetzee’s Writings by Bipasha Mandal
Chapter 16: Provincializing Ecocriticism: Postcolonial Ecocritical Thoughts and Environmental-Historical Difference by Animesh Roy
About the Contributors
To skeptics, "environmental postcolonialism" may seem like odd cognates, reflecting the desperate scramble of scholarly and scientific disciplines to appear green. Ostensibly, a prefix (environmentalism) is all it takes to do so. This collection of superb scholarship, however, rises far above this fad, arguing that ecocriticism in former colonies chronicles the ways in which colonialists robbed them of nature and culture.... The collection features 16 well-researched and well-written essays by early-career and established scholars. It encompasses environmental postcolonial scholarship from across Africa, the Americas, and Asia, and is equally diverse in its topical treatment, covering natural resources, place-based identities, gendered ecology, eco-consciousness, and capitalist predation of nature. In short, Environmental Postcolonialism makes a memorable contribution to an eponymous field, and to the literature on ecocriticism and postcolonial theory. Highly recommended.
— Choice Reviews
Environmental Postcolonialism is a must read for those interested to know more about the intersection and intermeshing of ecocriticism and postcolonial studies. Drawing on a wide range of insights from across the world, the book delves into how colonialism devastated nature and environment as much as it destroyed the human component of former colonies. This is a much-needed critical intervention that investigates the epistemes of colonial legacy that became synonymous with the destruction of the world around us. A thought-provoking collection!
— Sami Ahmad Khan, author of Aliens in Delhi, Red Jihad, and Star Warriors of the Modern Raj
Environmental Postcolonialism: A Literary Response is a extraordinary volume containing sixteen chapters written by seventeen different writers. The merit of the book lies in the multiplicity of literary narratives undertaken for applying the concept of environment and postcolonialism. In fact, it is one of the pioneer texts in the interdisciplinary concept of environment and postcolonialism. The book is an essential read for the students and scholars of Humanities, Literature, Social Sciences and their kind.
— Santhosh Bahadur Singh, Lady Irwin College Delhi University
