GREEN WRITINGS OF ARUNDHATI ROY
Keywords:
Environment, ecocriticism, marginalized communities, resistance, conservation, socio-political issues, natural resources, depletion, consumerist culture, activism,Abstract
This paper is an effort for an ecocritical reading of Arundhati Roy’s writings – the novel God of Small Things and a few of her non-fictional works with a focus on Broken Republic and The Algebra of Infinite Justice. Environmental concerns run parallel to, or are integrated with, other social and political implications in most of her writings. The paper identifies Roy as an environmental and literary activist who consistently stands for conservation along with her larger concerns of socio-political justice for the subaltern and she can be considered as an environmental justice activist. The paper also attempts to highlight the significance of environmentalism in literature against the backdrop of the enormous ecological threats that the planet earth faces at present.
References
Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things, New Delhi: India Ink, 1997.
Debarati Bandhopadhyay, “Arundhati Roy: Environment and Literary Activism,” Institute of Development Studies Kolkata, April 2011, 2, <http://www.idsk.edu.in/annual-reports/OP-24.pdf> accessed on 13 February 2014.
M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Harpham, A Handbook of Literary Terms, Cengage Learning: New Delhi, 2011, 82.
<http://www.Snopes.com>Home>QuestionableQuotes> accessed on 3
Arundhati Roy, Broken Republic, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2011.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-socialism> accessed on 5 January 2014.
Derek Wall, Rise of the Green Left: Inside the Worldwide Ecosocialist Movement, Pluto Press: London, 2010, 78-79.
Ramachandra Guha and Juan Martinez-Alier, Varieties of Environmentalism: Essays North and South, London: Earthscan, 1997, 21.
Richard Kerridge, “Cotemporary Ecocriticism between Red and Green” in John Rignall and Valentine Cunningham, Ecology and Literature of the British Left: London: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2012, 23.
Upamanyu Pablo Mukharjee, Post Colonial Environments: Nature Culture and the Contemporary Indian Novel in English, Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 96.
Arundhati Roy, The Algebra of Infinite Justice, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2002.
Annie Merrill Ingram, Ian and Sweeting Marshall, and W. Adam, eds., Coming into Contact: Explorations in Ecocritical theory and Practice, Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2007, 161.
Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2011, 171.
Richard Kerridge, “Environmentalism and Ecocriticism” in Patricia Waugh, ed., An Oxford Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006, 352.
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, New York: Houghton Muffin, 1962.
David Barsamian, “Interview with Arundhati Roy,” Progressive, April 2001, < http://www.progressive.org> accessed on 22 January 2014.
Arundhati Roy, An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire, New Delhi: Viking, 2005.
