Navigating Ecological Dystopia and Apocalyptic Predictions in Amitav Ghosh’s The Living Mountain: A Fable for Our Times

Abstract

This paper intends to explore ecological dystopian reality and subsequent apocalyptic scenario caused by excessive exploitation of Nature as exposed in Amitav Ghosh’s fabulous book The Living Mountain: A Fable for Our Times (2022). Contextualizing within a dystopian set-up, Ghosh’s The Living Mountain: A Fable for Our Times operates as one of the most significant pieces of writing which brilliantly exposes the man-Nature interaction considering human beings as an integral part of Nature. The narrative exhibits an ecological dystopia where the Great Mountain or the Mahaparbat and its native dwellers have gone through a terrible catastrophe. By mapping the consequences of both harmony and disconnectedness among living and non-living beings of the environment, the narrative concentrates on analyzing the reasons behind this imbalanced man-Nature relationship and its adverse impact upon the environment. However, by encapsulating the ideas of Deep Ecology, Eco-criticism and the features of apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic literature, Ghosh’s text tries to reconcile this imbalanced relationship through an awareness of following sustainable outlook in terms of the protection of Nature.