Introduction

This book is not only an ecofeminist reading of Indian novels; it is an engagement with the theory of ecofeminism in the light of reading of the Indian novels. To analyse the ecofeminist discourse in Indian context, the book refers to the following literary narratives: Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve (2009) and The Coffer Dams (2008), Shivram Karanth’s Return to Earth (2002), Pundalik Naik’s The Upheaval (2002), Indira Goswami’s The Man from Chinnamasta (2006), Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People (2007), Sarah Joseph’s Gift in Green (2011) and Na D’Souza’s Dweepa (2013). It also opens frontiers for many disciplines and discourses, especially for the academicians and students of literature and criticism; it has layered perspectives for interpretations because it is not only limited to literary narratives but it probes into various issues related to ecological crisis which forms the backdrop for the select Indian novels: the detailed accounts of mining in Goa and the landfilling of hundreds of acres of water-beds and mangrove forests in Ernakulam district to build a cricket stadium which impact on Indian agrarian culture, Indian project of dam construction and its effect on environment, industrial disaster of Bhopal, the Indian mythological background and the ethnography of the animal sacrifice, etc.