Everyday Anthropocene and Multispecies Kinship in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island

The term ‘everyday’ typically denotes the routine, mundane aspects of day-to-day life, embodying notions of normalcy, ordinariness, and familiarity. From this perspective, it stands as an antithesis to the unusual, strange, and extraordinary. However, the Anthropocene era—our current geological epoc...

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Main Authors: Asima Gogoi, Anurag Bhattacharyya
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Boibhashik 2024-08-01
Series:Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry
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Online Access:https://www.sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/268
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author Asima Gogoi
Anurag Bhattacharyya
author_facet Asima Gogoi
Anurag Bhattacharyya
author_sort Asima Gogoi
collection DOAJ
description The term ‘everyday’ typically denotes the routine, mundane aspects of day-to-day life, embodying notions of normalcy, ordinariness, and familiarity. From this perspective, it stands as an antithesis to the unusual, strange, and extraordinary. However, the Anthropocene era—our current geological epoch marked by significant human impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems—has radically transformed our understanding of the ‘everyday’. In this epoch, the everyday no longer signifies a realm of predictability and relatability; rather, it encompasses new environmental realities that are bizarre and unprecedented. Therefore, contemporary literary fiction is challenged to redefine its approach to realism to aptly reflect the altered everyday experiences of its characters within the Anthropocene context. This paper examines Amitav Ghosh’s novel Gun Island (2019) as a literary manifestation of the ‘everyday Anthropocene’, a concept that recognises the Anthropocene not as a distant or abstract epoch but as an immediate, lived reality. The paper argues that the novel advocates for multispecies kinship as a vital survival strategy within the daily realities of the Anthropocene.
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spelling doaj-art-c876dc8780ed4236afce56ee3d6947772025-08-20T02:30:09ZengBoibhashikSanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry2349-80642024-08-01102708010.35684/JLCI.2024.10207268Everyday Anthropocene and Multispecies Kinship in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun IslandAsima Gogoi0Anurag Bhattacharyya1Namrup CollegeGauhati UniversityThe term ‘everyday’ typically denotes the routine, mundane aspects of day-to-day life, embodying notions of normalcy, ordinariness, and familiarity. From this perspective, it stands as an antithesis to the unusual, strange, and extraordinary. However, the Anthropocene era—our current geological epoch marked by significant human impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems—has radically transformed our understanding of the ‘everyday’. In this epoch, the everyday no longer signifies a realm of predictability and relatability; rather, it encompasses new environmental realities that are bizarre and unprecedented. Therefore, contemporary literary fiction is challenged to redefine its approach to realism to aptly reflect the altered everyday experiences of its characters within the Anthropocene context. This paper examines Amitav Ghosh’s novel Gun Island (2019) as a literary manifestation of the ‘everyday Anthropocene’, a concept that recognises the Anthropocene not as a distant or abstract epoch but as an immediate, lived reality. The paper argues that the novel advocates for multispecies kinship as a vital survival strategy within the daily realities of the Anthropocene.https://www.sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/268everydayanthropocenemultispecieskinshipnon-human
spellingShingle Asima Gogoi
Anurag Bhattacharyya
Everyday Anthropocene and Multispecies Kinship in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island
Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry
everyday
anthropocene
multispecies
kinship
non-human
title Everyday Anthropocene and Multispecies Kinship in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island
title_full Everyday Anthropocene and Multispecies Kinship in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island
title_fullStr Everyday Anthropocene and Multispecies Kinship in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island
title_full_unstemmed Everyday Anthropocene and Multispecies Kinship in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island
title_short Everyday Anthropocene and Multispecies Kinship in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island
title_sort everyday anthropocene and multispecies kinship in amitav ghosh s gun island
topic everyday
anthropocene
multispecies
kinship
non-human
url https://www.sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/268
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AT anuragbhattacharyya everydayanthropoceneandmultispecieskinshipinamitavghoshsgunisland