Amitav Ghosh, celebrated author and Jnanpith awardee, says it’s not him or his body of work that is changing, but it’s the planet that has changed. Climate change effects that are being observed around the world can no longer be escaped. “There’s nowhere else,” he says.
In this special podcast, The Quint’s Opinion Editor, Nishtha Gautam, catches up with Amitav Ghosh to discuss his new book, The Nutmeg’s Curse, which is based on climate change, the history of colonialism and how society has changed over centuries. In the book, Ghosh traces the trajectory of the spread of nutmeg from the Banda Islands to the rest of the world, which is symbolic of the wider sweep of the colonial mindset across the globe that brought both human and environmental devastation.
From starting as a weaver of tales of the history of people to almost straddling the world of climate action today, Ghosh has come a long way. He says it’s what one would expect.