She describes an enterprise of writing that is replete with “a material mesh of meanings, properties and processes, in which human and non-human players are interlocked in networks that produce undeniable signifying forces” (Iovino 1-2). The term ‘material turn’ is used by Serenella Iovino in her work Material Ecocriticism in which she describes the existence of material forces and substances – the agency of things and their role in materialistic societies, and how narratives and stories contribute to make meaning out of the material world. Like Ghosh, Roy and Sen, Suniti Namjoshi’s fables and stories in Dangerous Pursuits are another call to protect our planet, to distrust the grandeur of empty materialistic quests and to make a ‘material turn’.
Likewise, Sudeep Sen poetically articulates the present-day situation as one where “we stare starkly at the climate change we’ve helped create” (Sen 33). Similarly, Arundhati Roy cautions readers that we are engaged in a race toward extinction “as we lurch into the future, in this blitzkrieg of idiocy, Facebook ‘likes’, fascist marches, fake-news coups” (Roy 2). Amitav Ghosh in his work The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, wonders if the present generation is deranged! He warns readers that “this era, which so congratulates itself on its self-awareness, will come to be known as the time of the Great Derangement” (Ghosh 11). Postcolonial writers like Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy and Sudeep Sen have adopted an eco-critical sleight of hand to spark eco-critical awareness to the world at large. It’s unsettling to think that we are now on the verge of destroying ourselves and the planet because of our own efforts to make the world a comfortable place … there are massacres, world wars, genocides, floods, famines, plagues … We’ll have to change – our ideas, our attitudes, our very make-up. Will we write ourselves off as a failed society who let climate change lead us to a well-merited oblivion? She muses on how we will be perceived by our future generations.
N her preface to Dangerous Pursuits, Suniti Namjoshi warns readers that our reckless pursuit and addictive use of fossil fuels is a ‘dangerous’ one.
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