Ecocriticism in Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke

Abstract

Amitav Ghosh is a contemporary Indian English writer. His novels deal with ecological perspectives. The central concern of this paper is ecological criticism in the second part of the Ibis trilogy the River of Smoke (2011).This novel highlights the effect of ecological imperialism on the flora and fauna of three countries India,, China and Mauritius.Ghosh has interwined  history with fiction in the novel. The story of the novel is set on Opium War (1839-42) fought between the British and the Chinese. The paper will examine the ecocentric dimensions in the work of Ghosh.He blends fiction with historyand in this novel the story revolves around the opium war which is a major incident of the colonial history.