Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide

John Thieme (University of East Anglia)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 10.3.1.03: Indian Writing and Culture: Post-colonial, 1947-present.
Vol. editors: Claire Gallien (Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3), Pavan Kumar Malreddy (J W Goethe University of Frankfurt), Delphine Munos (Université de Liège)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2004

Places

India (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Unlike all of Ghosh’s previous works, The Hungry Tide (2004) is set in a single place, the Sundarbans, or “tide country”, region of West Bengal, a unique landscape of mangrove-forested islands and mudflats at the mouth of Ganges Delta. The novel includes numerous quotations from the Duino Elegies and Rilke’s belief that “life is lived in transformation” (Elegy 7) is central to Ghosh’s representation of the area. He accentuates the extent to which the Sundarbans undergoes constant metamorphoses, both because of daily tidal flows, with sections of land being temporarily submerged and with seawater and freshwater intermingling, and because of the periodic devastation wrought by extreme monsoon and …

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1840 words

Citation: Thieme, John. "The Hungry Tide". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 December 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=19302, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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