The hot subject

talking point

Amitav Ghosh’s new work of nonfiction, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, deals with the impact of climate change on the world and its future, and on fiction and politics. Climate change and environmental issues, apparently, aren’t as expressively written about in mainstream fiction as they should be.

In an interview in Bengaluru recently, the author, soft-spoken and gracious, talked about the book and climate change, as well as his interests outside the world of writing...

You write both fiction and non-fiction. Do you have a preference for either?

I certainly prefer writing fiction.
Fiction is for me much more fulfilling. It’s also much more challenging than when I’m writing non-fiction. But this book was an exception because the subject is an extraordinarily difficult subject. At one level there is a whole range of technical details which you have to educate yourself about… but also the subject itself is challenging,
because, we — the society as a whole — have decided that it should be tackled by economists and technicians. And to wrest it away from that field is quite difficult but also necessary. So in a way, that is really what is so difficult — to reclaim the subject for ourselves. To assert our right to think about it in ways that are particular to us.

Has climate change always been of concern to you?

Environmental issues, generally speaking, have been a concern for me going back a long way. They are local issues. Climate change is a much wider thing. It’s the all-encompassing context within which now everything operates. So much of it is caused by things that are far away from us. Carbon dioxide being released somewhere… methane gas escaping to the skies from Siberia. We don’t see those things, we don’t hear about them much. Yet they have a direct impact on our lives.

Climate change is a vast topic. What kind of research was involved in the
writing of this book?

I did a lot of library research. But I also talked to a lot of atmospheric scientists, because, after all, I’m not a scientist, and I’m not talking about the science of climate change. I like to think that I’m familiar with most of it, but that’s not my field, obviously. For me, more than the research, it was a question of thinking, trying to think about what climate change means to all of us.

You indicate that there’s a lack of serious fiction focusing on climate change. Why do you think that is?

That is exactly the question I ask in my book. It’s not just that it’s lacking in
fiction, it’s lacking in all writing. Take journalism. Say, the drought that hit Delhi for a long time… I was in Delhi and I was with a group of young journalists. And I asked them how many stories have you done on climate change? They said none.

Genre fiction has tackled environmental issues including climate change — why do you believe that works of genre fiction are “humble dwellings that surround the manor house” that is serious fiction as mentioned in the book?

I don’t. I think genre fiction is actually more interesting than a lot of serious
fiction. But people who write genre fiction are not generally eligible for the big prizes in fiction. And why should that be? So, what I’m trying to say is that, that difference should be erased.

How well can fiction present such issues for general awareness?

I think it’s important that fiction should present these issues to the general
public, because that’s one of the ways people will start thinking about the
issues. Once writers of fiction begin to tell stories of this kind, others will follow. Since this book came out, I hear editors are commissioning articles on climate change; there have been panels and programmes on climate change.

One of the lessons of climate change is exactly this — that we’ve suddenly realised that climate has always influenced the arts and thinking. But we just chose to be blind to it. But now that it’s happening again, now that it’s all around us, we can’t afford this distinction anymore.

What are some of the books you recently enjoyed?

I very much enjoyed a book by Tabish Khair; it’s called Jihadi Jane.

What were some of your childhood literary influences?

I read a lot as a child. I loved science fiction; I loved historical fiction.

What are some of the genres of music you enjoy?

I love music. I would say that my real favourite on the one hand is Hindustani classical music, and I also love Western classical music.

What do you do to relax after a hectic day?

I like to cook. I grow some of my own food. I like gardening. Cooking is for me, and, I think, it is for most people, a primary relationship with nature. If you cook, you also go to market and realise what is grown in what season. When I was coming in on the plane, I was really shocked to see how many water-intensive crops are being grown around here. In these parts of India, people grew specialised drought-resistant crops like jowar,
bajra and ragi. Experimenting with these things is something I really enjoy.

Any other interests?

Cooking, writing, gardening… and I would say badminton. I love badminton.