Reading the Postcolonial Island in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide

Bibliographic Data

ID12873448
AuthorsLawson Fletcher (0000-0002-8348-472X, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume6
Issue1
Pages3-16
Publication date2011-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueIsland Studies Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1715-2593 • E-ISSN: 1715-2593
PublisherIsland Studies Journal (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.24043/isj.248
OpenAlexW2102601988
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited9

This paper argues that literature has much to contribute to the theoretical work of island studies, and not just because literary texts provide evidence of the ways islands are conceptualized in different historical and cultural contexts. To this end, it discusses Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide (2004), a novel which actively theorizes key concepts in island studies. The Hungry Tide is set in the Sundarbans, an “immense archipelago” in the Ganges delta, and tells the largely forgotten history of the forced evacuation of refugees from the island of Morichjhãpi in 1979. The liminal space of the Sundarbans, the “tide country”, is an extraordinary setting for a literary exploration of the relationship between postcolonial island geographies and identities. Ghosh’s depiction of the “watery labyrinth” (Ghosh, 2004: 72) and “storm-tossed islands” (Ghosh, 2004: 164) of the Sundarbans raises and addresses questions, which should be at the heart of the critical meta-discourse of island studies

Archaeology · Archipelago · Art · Colonialism · Depiction · Geography · Liminality · Literature · Political science · Postcolonial literature · Reading (process · Sociology · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · History · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Philippine History and Culture

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