Ghosh, Amitav
Entry updated 16 March 2020. Tagged: Author.
(1956- ) Indian author now resident in the US, whose sf novel, The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of Fevers, Delirium & Discovery (1992), won the Arthur C Clarke Award. Within a thriller frame, it provides a searching exploration of culture, ethics, and the possibilities of Genetics. Ghosh has also written several non-fantastic novels and works of nonfiction, including The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016), a passionately-couched exploration of the implications of the Anthropocene epoch that Homo sapiens has now entered. In this text he argues that a tale defined as Fantastika cannot describe (or adumbrate) the real world, but comes far from convincing those who are well-read in the literature. Gun Island (2019) hovers slightly uneasily at the edge of the very Near Future, as Climate Change desolates the planet, though in the background of the tale. Ghosh may well be seen in time as one of the more significant Indian writers of his generation. [GS]
see also: Bengal.
Amitav Ghosh
born Kolkata, India: 11 July 1956
died
works (highly selected)
- The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of Fevers, Delirium & Discovery (New Delhi, India: Ravi Dayal Publisher, 1992) [hb/]
- Gun Island (London: John Murray, 2019) [hb/]
nonfiction
- The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2016) [nonfiction: hb/]
links
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