Eroding Landscapes, Eroding Identities: An Ecocritical Study of Kiran Desai's Fiction
Sr No:
Page No:
50-54
Language:
English
Authors:
Dr. Rajendra D. Gholap*
Received:
2026-02-11
Accepted:
2026-03-02
Published Date:
2026-03-14
Abstract:
This paper undertakes a sustained ecocritical examination of Kiran Desai's fiction, with particular attention to her debut
novel Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard (1998) and her Booker Prize-winning The Inheritance of Loss (2006). Drawing upon the
theoretical frameworks of ecocriticism, postcolonial ecology, and environmental humanities, the study investigates how Desai employs
landscape, geography, and ecological degradation as literary devices that mirror and intensify the psychological, cultural, and political
fragmentation of her characters. The central argument of the paper is that in Desai's fictional world, the erosion of the natural
environment is inseparable from the erosion of human identity, community, and cultural memory. Through close textual analysis, the
paper explores how the Himalayan foothills of Kalimpong and the withering guava orchard of Shahkot become symbolic territories
where ecological loss resonates with existential crisis. The study further situates Desai's work within the broader discourses of climate
anxiety, postcolonial guilt, and the enduring legacies of imperial exploitation that continue to shape both environments and human
subjectivities across the Indian subcontinent. The paper concludes that Desai's fiction makes a significant and underappreciated
contribution to Indian English literature's engagement with environmental ethics and ecological consciousness.
Keywords:
Ecocriticism, Environmental Identity, Postcolonial Ecology, Hullabaloo in the Guava Climate Anxiety, Solastalgia.