Amitav Ghosh's Wild Fictions: Essays on Literature, Empire, and the Environment gathers 25 years of essays and correspondence into a collection that is both expansive and accessible--offering not just knowledge, but a compelling invitation to rethink how we inhabit the world.
Organized into six sections, including "Travel and Discovery" and "Witnesses," the book showcases Ghosh's well-researched, conversational style, and provides fresh insights on climate change, colonialism, and migration. Ghosh (Gun Island; Smoke and Ashes) observes that the "relationship between people and their surroundings constitutes as vast a spectrum of experience as the human mind is capable of conceiving." His essays reflect this breadth, exploring displacement, cyclones, spices, and the history of the lascars ("indigenous sailors from the Indian Ocean area"). Yet, he notes that one thread runs through the collection: a chronicling of the era that began 300 years ago with the rise of industrialization and the expanding dominance of the West. This through line pairs a sense of measured reflection with an urgent call to action.
The titular essay argues that the very idea of an "untouched" forest is a wild fiction, shaped by colonialist assumptions that have often led to the exploitation of ecosystems and Indigenous people. More broadly, the collection examines how human hubris--and the belief of the inferiority of other species--has fueled today's planetary crises.
In Wild Fictions, Ghosh ultimately makes the case that, "in order to hear the Earth, we must first learn to love it." That call resonates throughout this thought-provoking, and deeply intriguing, collection. --Grace Rajendran, freelance reviewer