Amitav Ghosh’s Jungle Nama. Writing Beyond the Novel


Abstract


The publication of Jungle Nama (2021) marks a new turn in Amitav Ghosh’s poetics. The author moves from his own studies in environmental humanities to question the aesthetics of the novel and to reevaluate the vitalism of peasants’ traditions, which he opposes to Western rationalism. With Jungle Nama the author turns to verse and myth to admonish and set an example of respect for the non-human. From an aesthetical viewpoint, Ghosh transposes the narrative from the traditional Bengali versions to the language and media of world literature and world arts. The result is what we call the Jungle Nama Project, where visual art, music, literature, philology, and drama come together to disrupt the epistemological dominance of the Western forms.

DOI Code: 10.1285/i22390359v64p105

Keywords: Amitav Ghosh; Jungle Nama; environmental activism; ecosophy; myth

References


Biswas S. 2022, Jungle Nama: Ghosh’s adaptation of a mystic folktale from the Sundarbans, in “Journal of Social and Economic Development” 24 [1], pp. 237-239.

Booth W. 1977, For the Authors, in “Novel: A Forum on Fiction” 11 [1], pp. 5-19.

D’Hubert T. 2018, In the Shade of t he Golden Palace: Alaol and Middle Bengali Poetics in Arakan, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Ghosh A. 2000, The Glass Palace, HarperCollins, London.

Ghosh A. 2004, The Hungry Tide, HarperCollins, London.

Ghosh A. 2016, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago (IL).

Ghosh A. 2021a, The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, John Murray, London.

Ghosh A. 2021b, Jungle Nama. A Story of the Sundarban, Fourth Estate, Delhi.

Ghosh A. 2021c, Jungle Nama, A Story of the Sundarban, Sethi A. (narr.) [audiobook], John Murray, London.

Ghosh A. 2022, Jungle Nama. A Story of the Sundarban, O’Harra B. (dir.), Sethi A. (comp.) [musical performance], Montgomery Theater at Penn Live Arts, Philadelphia (PA). https://vimeo.com/727108475 (23.3.2023).

Jalais A. 2010, Forest of Tigers: People, Politics and Environment in the Sundarbans, Routledge, New Delhi.

Moretti F. 2001, Il secolo serio, in Moretti F. (ed.), Il romanzo. La cultura del romanzo, Einaudi, Torino, pp. 688-725.

Naess A. 2005, The Significance of Place: At Home in the Mountains, in Glasser H. and Drengson A. (eds.), The Selected Works of Arne Naess. Vol. X Deep Ecology of Wisdom, Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 337-378.

Rao S. and Proiti R. 2011, In Bon Bibi’s Forest, Our Myths, Tulika, Chennai.

Rigoni Stern M. 1953, Il sergente nella neve. Ricordi della ritirata di Russia, Einaudi, Torino.

Rothenberg D. 1989, Introduction: Ecosophy T – from Intuition to System, in Naess A. and Rothenberg D. (eds.), Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 1-22.

Sengupta S. 2022a, An Ecofeminist Reading of Amitav Ghosh’s Jungle Nama, in Khuraijam G. (ed.), Exploring Gender Studies and Feminism through Literature and Media, IGI Global, Hershey (PA), pp. 106-112.

Sengupta S. 2022b, Rethinking Ecology: Myth, Meter and Measure in Jungle Nama, in “Journal of Analytical Psychology” 67 [5], pp. 1497-1504.

Vescovi A. 2009, Amitav Ghosh in Conversation, in “ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature” 40 [4], pp. 129-141.


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
کاغذ a4

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.