Wild Fictions: Essays

by Amitav Ghosh, Ranjit Madgavkar (Narrator)

Wild Fictions brings together Amitav Ghosh's extraordinary writings on subjects that have obsessed him over the last twenty-five literature and language; climate change and the environment; human lives, travel and discoveries. The spaces that we inhabit, and the manner in which we occupy them, is a constant thread throughout this striking and expansive collection.

From the significance of the commodification of the clove to the diversity of the mangrove forests in Bengal and the radical fluidity of multilingualism, Wild Fictions is a powerful refutation of imperial violence, a fascinating exploration of the fictions we weave to absorb history, and a reminder of the importance of sensitivity and empathy.

With the combination of moral passion, intellectual curiosity and literary elegance that defines his writing, Amitav Ghosh makes us understand the world in new, and urgent, ways. Together, the pieces in Wild Fictions chart a course that allows us to heal our relationships and restore the delicate balance with the volatile landscapes to which we all belong.

**

'We owe a great debt to Ghosh's brilliant mind, avenging pen and huge soul' --- Naomi Klein

'Urgent, beautiful and far-reaching . . . it should be essential reading' --- The Times Literary Supplement on The Nutmeg's Curse

'Consistently stimulating' --- The Guardian on The Great Derangement

'He has surpassed many historians in his ability to synthesize a wealth of research with remarkable intellectual clarity' --- The Times on Smoke and Ashes

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Environment, History, India, Politics

Audible Audio

Published April 16, 2025

About the author

Amitav Ghosh is an Indian writer. He won the 54th Jnanpith award in 2018, India's highest literary honour. Ghosh's ambitious novels use complex narrative strategies to probe the nature of national and personal identity, particularly of the people of India and South Asia. He has written historical fiction and non-fiction works discussing topics such as colonialism and climate change.
Ghosh studied at The Doon School, Dehradun, and earned a doctorate in social anthropology at the University of Oxford. He worked at the Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi and several academic institutions. His first novel, The Circle of Reason, was published in 1986, which he followed with later fictional works, including The Shadow Lines and The Glass Palace. Between 2004 and 2015, he worked on the Ibis trilogy, which revolves around the build-up and implications of the First Opium War. His non-fiction work includes In an Antique Land (1992) and The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016).
Ghosh holds two Lifetime Achievement awards and four honorary doctorates. In 2007, he was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India's highest honours, by the President of India. In 2010, he was a joint winner, along with Margaret Atwood, of a Dan David prize, and in 2011, he was awarded the Grand Prix of the Blue Metropolis festival in Montreal. He was the first English-language writer to receive the award. In 2019, Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the most important global thinkers of the preceding decade.

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful, wide-ranging collection of essays that I have no time to review before leaving for the christmas holidays, and no space for in my luggage. I will write the full review that it deserves in the new year.

[EDIT 02/01/26, full review now follows]

Wild Fictions: Essays is a somewhat confusingly named collection of short non-fiction essays that Ghosh has published over the last few decades. I find both his fiction and non-fiction writing highly rewarding to read, so was in no way disappointed by this. The essays are neatly grouped by theme and each section coheres nicely. I was forced by the vagaries of library book return dates to read them quickly. The book really deserved a more considered perusal. Nonetheless, I very much appreciated the breadth of topics covered, from the vast (international migration, climate change) to the specific (rare surviving accounts of First World War prison camps in Syria). Not every chapter is in essay format, as email correspondence and presentations are also included. All are compelling and beautifully written. As ever, Ghosh displays incredible scholarship, insight, and sympathy. He places contemporary events in historical context and brings forward historical perspectives that have received little attention.

I was impressed that Ghosh manages to say something interesting and new about migration, by listening to migrants and thinking about what their decision to travel to Europe meant to them:

Davide's experience is a reminder that the idea of the ordeal has always held a certain fascination for human beings. This is why for many migrants their journeys become the defining moments of their lives. This is, in a way, the strangest aspect of their plight: in Europe they are confronted with the political rationality of a certain kind of liberalism that confers its sympathy only on victims. So in dealing with the state, and when talking to activists, they learn to present themselves as victims, as objects without agency, propelled solely by external forces. Yet in their own eyes, as in the eyes of their families back home, they are heroes who have taken their destinies into their hands and endured terrible ordeals. No wonder then that many of them say that the worst part of their journeys consists not of their time on the road or at sea, but rather the months and years they spend languishing in European migrant camps.

Ghosh also comments on the many similarities between current patterns of migration from the Global South to Europe and the voyages of nineteenth century indentured workers (also known as 'coolies'). The key difference, in his view, is that the system of 'illegal' migration is outside of government control as a result of communications technology. He also sees the internet as a key driver of migration, by essentially advertising a better life of greater material comfort in Europe. Ghosh is keenly aware of the linkages between his topics of interest and explores the connections between environmental damage, colonialism, poverty, and inequality:

It is in much the same spirit that the inhabitants of cities like New Delhi and Lahore endure toxic levels of pollution, despite knowing that the air they breathe will shorten their lives by several years. The damage to their health and well-being is seen as a sacrifice that is necessary, on the one hand, to enjoy a certain standard of living and, on the other, to advance a wider collective aspiration to a better place in the international order. It is by this route that coping with environmental hazards comes to be blended with some of notions of sacrifice and suffering that underlie nationalism. By the same token, attempts to impose limitations on the carbon emissions of poor countries are widely seen as a covert means of preserving the economic and geopolitical disparities of the last 200 years, since on a per capita basis the carbon emissions of the Global South are still a fraction of those of affluent countries.

While the essays on current geopolitical and environmental topics were excellent, the most moving and unexpected were historical. Ghosh discusses in some detail several fascinating archival sources for Indian participation in the First World War. He quotes at length an amazingly clear-sighted letter written on 20th October 1915 by Capt. Kalyan Mukherji, while he was an army doctor at the front lines in Iraq:

England is the teacher. The love of country that England has always taught, that same love of country whose virtues are sung by all civilised nations - that is what all this bloodshed is for. Grabbing someone else's country - that's 'patriotism'. Patriotism - that's what builds kingdoms and empires. To display the love of country, love of race, by seizing a piece of territory, at the cost of thousands and thousands of lives, this is what the English have taught.

Now the youth of our country have started to emulate these vile ways of loving one's nation. As a result, all kinds of horrifying things have started to happen; people are dead and bombs have been thrown at a blameless Viceroy. I spit in the face of patriotism. As long as this narrow-mindedness is not wiped off the face of the earth there will be no end to the bloodshed in the name of patriotism. Whether one man throws a bomb from a rooftop or fifty men hurl shells from a cannon - this bloodshed, this madness, all spring from the same cause.

An endnote mentions that the literal translation of the phrase given as 'I spit in the face of patriotism' is, 'A broom in the face of loving your own country', an excellent detail. Ghosh also has a tendency to suddenly drop in a couple of paragraphs that succinctly condense ideas which other authors spend entire books failing to adequately explain, such as:

It is strange to think that the fall of the Berlin Wall is still widely read as a vindication of 'capitalism'. The truth is that the world's experience over these last fifteen [now thirty-six] years could more accurately be read as proof that untrammeled capitalism leads inevitably to imperial wars and the expansion of empires. If that were not the case, then surely the most uncontested reign of a single system would prove to be an epoch, if not of universal peace, then certainly one in which there would be broad agreement on the means of ensuring peace? Yet what we see is exactly the opposite. We find ourselves in a period of extraordinary instability and fear, faced with the prospect of an endless proliferation of thinly veiled colonial wars. In fact, there is less agreement on the means of ensuring peace today than there was at the time of the founding of the United Nations.

Empires always profess, and sometimes even believe in, noble ideals: the problem lies with their methods, which are invariably such as to subvert their stated aims and ends. This is because the processes of conquest, occupation, and domination create realities that become alibis for the permanent deferral of the professed ideals.

Ghosh is among those who have suggested animism as an environmentalist ideology (if you can call it that) that could counter capitalism's destructiveness. Among such writers, he is particularly good at bringing traditional indigenous beliefs into conversation with the natural sciences, rather than treating them as adversarial:

These sciences direct a gaze of concentrated, interpretive scrutiny towards the curtain of signs that is called 'data'. Natural history is in this sense the indispensable science of interpretation that allows the environment to speak back to us. Although 'natural science' is by no means the only knowledge system to apply interpretive methods to the natural world, it is certainly the only one that is capable of universal application. Yet science cannot be the final arbiter in the matter of our relationship with nature for the very good reason that its procedures and methods cannot acknowledge or address questions of meaning, intention, and lived history. The seriousness of this limitation does not become obvious until we consider the field of public policy.

Ghosh's 2016 book The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable is an all-time favourite of mine, so I was particularly interested by a write-up of an academic round table discussion about it. The final paragraph simply punched me in the face:

In light of these realities it is undeniable that the last section of The Great Derangement is 'forced'. The only excuse I can offer is that I felt it necessary to look, as does nearly everyone who writes about climate change, for some rays of hope. Very few of us can claim to possess the clarity of vision that allowed Martin Heidigger to say, as he did half a century ago: 'Only a god can save us'.

Wild Fictions: Essays stands by itself as an engaging, enlightening, and erudite collection of short pieces, but also enriches the reader's experience of Ghosh's novels and non-fiction books. He is a truly exceptional writer. Who else can claim to have produced some of the best historical novels and environmental non-fiction of the twenty-first century?

[Abhimanyu Lodha · Rating 4 out of 5]

TL;DR: 7.5/10 for me. Amitav Ghosh is perhaps not the kind of writer who sits in a beautiful seaside café with a fountain pen (or a Mac if you are not old school), conjuring hauntingly imaginative stories. To me, he appears to be a hustler. On his feet, out in the real world - researching, engaging with people at the heart of history, poring over rare and difficult-to-find books, and synthesizing insights from a vast array of disciplines. His work is a testament to intellectual rigor and literary genius. So, when he writes, you read.

Wild Fictions is an evocative and thought-provoking collection of essays that compiles Ghosh’s reflections on topics that, in his own words, have obsessed him for the past 25 years. The essays delve into myriad topics of climate change, the World Wars, the spice trade, colonization, refugee migrations, geopolitics, and many other fascinating subjects, creating a bridge between literature, environmentalism, and human history.

The pacing is steady, the prose functional and accessible, and the essays are unlike anything I’ve read before. While the book is non-fiction, it is sprinkled with heartwarming stories that add a human touch to Ghosh’s deep intellectual explorations.

Read this if you crave literature that both informs and inspires. However, if non-fiction isn’t your thing, you might find this collection a bit dense.

[Nirbhay Kanoria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amitav Ghosh, famous for his incredibly evocative fiction, has recently switched gears and begun writing more non-fiction. Contrary to the title, Wild Fictions is a collection of his non-fiction essays, lectures, conversations, book reviews and excerpts from other works (much of which has been previously published. They cover a broad range of topics such as climate change (one can easily call him an activist for the subject), past wars, immigration, history (akin to Smoke And Ashes), etc. It is possibly titled such because, at times, our current reality can be as wild, if not wilder, than any author's imagination.

He makes some interesting connections (albiet a bit tenuous) in some cases - imperialism leading to xenophillia, the rise of social media being a reason for the increase in immigration thanks to mimeism, etc.

Specific to one piece - I did question why a 2004 essay (on the defunct Sahara Group's plan to convert the Sunderbans into a tourist area) was included - it has little bearing in 2025.

I didn't care for his essays on the Indian involvement in the World Wars. Due to the number of excerpts, they were long and tedious reads. Nor did I care for the entire conversations section.

While a couple of travelogues are excellent, I found the entire collection a bit disappointing. It was incongrous, and I didn't really understand the curation, or frankly, even the need for this book.

[Pooja · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I picked this up, I thought a collection of essays would make for a comfortable read (after all, it’s Ghosh!) - but it turned out to be long, layered, and a challenge to finish.

Drawn from his lectures, published essays, website posts, and even exchanges with other writers and thinkers, the book ranges from witty and engaging to dense and detailed. Some pieces still feel strikingly relevant, while others could have benefitted from a postscript update. At times, the sheer depth made me lose steam, perhaps because not every subject spoke to my interests.

That said, for academics, researchers, and readers deeply engaged with contemporary issues, this is an important reference and reflection. For me, it was a mixed bag - rewarding in parts, demanding in others.

Not every Ghosh is an easy sail, but every Ghosh makes you pause and think.

[Rebekka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wild fictions is a collection of nonfiction pieces divided into six sections: Migration, Witness, Travel, Narrative, Conversation, and Climate. Each section holds essays that explore real-life events, personal accounts, and literary reflections centered around themes of displacement, caste, identity, environmental crisis, and the silent structures that shape human lives.

The book moves across countries and communities, touching on the migration of people from Bangladesh to different parts of the world, the experience of being marginalized by caste, and how digital systems and technology contribute to exclusion. Through these essays, readers are invited to see how historical and political forces continue to shape lives today.

Nature plays an important role throughout the book — not just as a setting, but as a witness and refuge for those excluded by society. The writing avoids formal or policy-heavy language and instead uses a thoughtful, narrative tone to bring forward voices that are often unheard.

Amitav Ghosh also brings in references to other texts, authors, and forgotten histories, making the essays not only standalone stories but also windows into a wider literary and cultural conversation. The essays are layered, reflective, and intentionally slow-paced, designed to encourage deep thinking rather than quick conclusions.

This book is for readers interested in migration studies, climate change, caste dynamics, and the connections between people, place, and power.

[Revanth Ukkalam · Rating 4 out of 5]

We owe so much to Amitav Ghosh for bearing the patience to be compassionate. For not giving up on love for the earth. For not giving up on all of us - and every year coming back to us and sharing with us how - not imminent - current the destruction of the current form of life, precisely due to that form. The form of the novel owes much to him for he refuses to forsake the historical method. He does not only tell human stories through his fictions but also roots them in actual, particular, historic humans. And the field of history owes much to him too. For rescuing it, for restoring it, and giving it a facelift from intellectual navel-gazing. From one to another he pollinates. And acts as the earth's conscience.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Wild Fictions: Essays on Literature, Empire, and the Environment by Amitav Ghosh during a slow, breathless day—classes off, lungs a little tight, tea cooling beside me—felt like wandering into a quiet but urgent forest of thought.

I had been dipping into the book since February, between novels, between tasks, between worlds. But yesterday, with nothing scheduled and a heaviness in the air (both literal and metaphorical), I surrendered to its gravity and read it through, finishing it just before evening fell. And now, I don’t think I can quite walk away from it unchanged.

Ghosh’s collection—27 essays, lectures, letters, and meditations spanning over two decades—is many things: it is a reckoning with colonial history, a dirge for disappearing ecologies, a love letter to multilingual storytelling, and, perhaps most powerfully, a map of the “wild fictions” we live by. Fictions about untouched forests, about progress, about nature as a resource. Fictions that serve capitalism and erase Indigenous stewardship. Fictions that allowed empire to flourish, and now permit climate disaster to unfold with bureaucratic calm.

In his pieces on climate change—set across the Sundarbans, the Bay of Bengal, the post-tsunami Andamans—Ghosh speaks with fire and precision. He challenges the idea that environmental collapse is simply a future problem. It is present, systemic, and rooted in the same extractive impulses that once drove spice ships across oceans. “The forest was never empty,” he writes. “It was emptied.” That distinction is the moral crux of his ecological thought. It isn’t the cyclone that shocks him—but our refusal to learn from the lands and lives it erases.

The essays on migration, too, cut deep. Ghosh dismantles the “myth of victimhood” projected onto migrants by the Global North. Many, he says, are not fleeing ruin but chasing dreams shaped by a global imagination of success—an imagination created by the very empires that now fear their return. “Empires,” Ghosh observes, “travel backward.” That paradox—of aspiration shaped by the hand that oppresses—is a recurring haunt throughout the volume.

Equally moving are the essays that delve into language, subaltern memory, and the violences of the archive. Ghosh gives voice to the silenced: lascars on forgotten ships, WWI sepoys buried in European trenches, displaced coastal families whose names never made it into reports. He reminds us that history is often curated silence—“a neutrality purchased by forgetting.” The correspondence with historian Dipesh Chakrabarty is especially striking, reflecting Ghosh’s commitment to thinking across disciplines, across geographies, across metaphors.

But make no mistake—Wild Fictions is not just a book of mourning. It is also a book of resistance. A resistance forged in language, in empathy, in remembering differently. Ghosh advocates not just for policy change but for a reimagining of what stories we deem rational, which voices we trust, and which cosmologies we center. “The limits of language,” he echoes Wittgenstein, “are also the limits of survival.”

As a reader who grew up on fiction—on epics, on folktales, on dusty library corners—this book felt like a call back home. But it was also a sharp tug forward. I thought of how many times we’ve used the word “progress” without asking who pays for it. I thought of the forests we romanticize but forget to defend. I thought of the comfort of Western narrative structures and how rarely we question their assumptions. And I thought of the stories we need now—less about heroes, more about kinship. Less about dominance, more about endurance.

Yes, Wild Fictions is sprawling. Yes, it’s uneven in tone—some essays sing, others simply inform. But as the Asian Age noted, it’s less an album than a mixtape—remastered, reflective, raw. And if there’s occasional repetition, it is the repetition of a man speaking through decades, trying again and again to name a crisis we refuse to see.

In the end, Wild Fictions doesn’t offer comfort. It offers clarity. It demands that we hold the past accountable, look the present in the eye, and imagine a different future with honesty and humility. As I closed the book, I found myself staring at the greying sky outside. The breeze had returned. Breathing, though still uneasy, felt fuller somehow.

We often ask: can literature change anything? Wild Fictions replies—not only can it, it must.

[Aditi · Rating 5 out of 5]

To read Wild Fictions is to be shaken awake. It does not lecture; it reveals. It does not console; it confronts. It demands engagement. Amitav Ghosh has brought together all his areas of expertise and interest that have long been politically ignored but are now impossible to overlook as the world spirals into disaster.
Known for his meticulous research, Ghosh unpacks the sweeping changes shaping our era. He reveals how nature has rung alarm bells repeatedly, only for disaster capitalists to shift locations in search of fresh opportunities to wreak havoc, leaving local communities to bear the brunt of calamities alone.

Climate change is no longer an abstract crisis, migration is no longer a faceless movement, and colonialism is no longer a chapter in history, it is here, pressing against the spine of our times.

In the opening essay, The Great Uprooting, Ghosh paves the way to move beyond the oversimplified binaries of necessity and ambition. He navigates a fundamental shift from migration as a mere economic compulsion to a cultural expectation. The need for migration is not always voluntary but also created by the disaster capitalists, backed up by the government, to marginalize the already marginalized.

Ghosh’s power lies in the refusal to accept easy answers.

And then, there is the banyan. Yes, an essay on the humble, ubiquitous undershirt, a garment that has clung to the Indian psyche as tenaciously as it does to the body. In this unexpected yet significant piece, Ghosh probes the fabric of cultural identity, revealing how even the most unassuming objects tell stories about class, economy, and belonging. It’s a moment of levity in a book that otherwise crackles with urgency.

But make no mistake, this collection is a reckoning. The essays on climate catastrophe cut through the noise of policy debates and activist slogans to show us the deeper malaise: a world still shackled to colonial-era exploitation, where even environmental destruction is an extension of historical inequities. Ghosh reminds us that storytelling itself may be our best weapon against this crisis.
Myths, folklore, and traditional ecological wisdom are not quaint relics but blueprints for survival.

History, too, is unraveled with the same unsparing precision. Ghosh excavates the buried legacies of World War I, where Asian and African soldiers fought and fell, only to be erased from the dominant narratives. These are stories that remind us how power writes history, and more importantly, how much it chooses to erase.

The book’s most striking power lies in its ability to connect dots that many might not think to link. The colonial past is woven into the very structure of the present. The unequal access to knowledge, the continued dominance of Anglo-American narratives, and the illusion that technological advancement will erase historical injustice are laid bare.
Who gets to tell history? Who owns knowledge? Who is paying the price for the world’s current trajectory?

[_booksagsm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amitav Ghosh’s Wild Fictions is a powerful collection of essays, lectures, and reflections that span twenty-five years of his writing and thinking. Far from being a scattered compilation, the book presents a cohesive vision: a demand to reckon with the entangled crises of our time—colonialism, climate change, forced migration, and the politics of knowledge. Ghosh argues that these are not isolated issues but deeply connected legacies of empire, capitalism, and ongoing global inequality.

One of the book’s major strengths is Ghosh’s ability to synthesize insights across disciplines—history, ecology, literature, and geopolitics—without losing clarity. He links today’s environmental collapse directly to the extractive logic of colonialism and warns against the illusion that technological progress alone can address systemic injustices. His essays on migration push past familiar narratives of poverty and opportunity, showing how displacement is often orchestrated by power structures designed to keep marginalized communities in flux.

What makes Wild Fictions stand out is its intellectual rigor paired with emotional urgency. Ghosh doesn’t simply analyze; he engages. Whether discussing the forgotten contributions of non-Western soldiers in World War I or examining the cultural significance of everyday objects, he brings overlooked histories to light with moral clarity and literary precision. The result is a collection that challenges the reader—not just to understand the world differently, but to feel its injustices more sharply.

While a few pieces may feel dated or overly academic, they don’t detract from the collection’s overall force. Wild Fictions is essential reading—unsettling, thought-provoking, and deeply relevant. Ghosh invites us to confront the “fictions” we’ve accepted and to consider the truths they often conceal.

[Siobhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the past decade, I've read bits of Amitav Ghosh's work and have wanted to read more. So, when I was given the opportunity to review Wild Fictions, it felt like kismet (thank you for the ARC, NetGalley and University of Chicago Press). I wasn't expecting to take notes as I read, but it's the kind of book that makes one consider how very different today's fractured world would be if wars, colonialism, exploitation, and disregard for the planet weren't baked into our global economy.

Ghosh's essays range from the effects of climate change on migration to a fascinating account of World War I from the perspective of colonial subjects fighting for empire. I was especially taken with his essay on the age of sail and the international crew of sailors who helped the West rule the seas (fans of Moby Dick will want to read this chapter). I love travel writing, and found Ghosh’s account of his student days, which led him from India to Cambridge to Egypt and beyond, riveting.

Wild Fictions asks us to get curious about our world, our climate, and our worldviews. A self-confessed xenophile, Ghosh approaches his travels, observations, conversations, and lectures with the openness and curiosity of a university student who wants to see, learn, and discuss everything. This is a book that readers will turn to again and again.

[Harshith J. V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

On personal front, I'd other priorities and so took more than 2 months finish this book. It's pretty lengthy book but not boring (though need to understand the context a lot in some sections)or too exhausting.

This book is a collection of essays. I can't find much connection between each and wonder how are the essays selected for this work. Maybe a filler book before releasing next major books. Also most chapters gives clues of author's other books. In an Antique Land is one of those book I'd like to read from this author next.

Anthropocene theme is mentioned in couple of chapters and Amitav stresses the reality of most global event causing it or resulting from it.

Accounts of Indian soldiers who fought World War detailed horrific yet explored more details other parts of British raj and war expeditions. Amitav sparring another great mind over emails was a exceptional read. Puts a shame to online trolls mudslinging each other without any substance. The emails were detailed and arguments were brilliant and cerebral.

The book is good for non-fiction collections in your library.

[Saju · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first time I am reading Amitav Ghosh's work, he brought to the fore some really interesting pieces of thought on climate change, pre-modern accounts of the lives of soldiers etc. Some of the topics he has showcased have never been on my radar, so it was all the more fascinating.

Though there were chapters which connected the dots and provided really good insights, I felt that the book lacked coherence. Between chapters I took my own sweet time to pick up my reading, overall it was not gripping. It felt as if the chapters were a mishmash, even the title of the book is misleading, none of the chapters were fiction!!

Overall, in my assessment, interesting read, however I still am critical of Amitav's insights.

[Pooja Jana · Rating 4 out of 5]

individual essays. helpful for Environmental Humanities students doing research.

[غبار · Rating 3 out of 5]

not as good as the great derangement. :(

[Deepak Jaisinghani · Rating 3 out of 5]

A culmination of Ghosh's varied interests. Readable for the most part. Skip the entirety of Section 5 and go through the rest.

[Sneha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is quite a mixed bag. Some pieces are brilliant or very moving. Others just seem to be there to fill the pages.