There is an increase in the body of scientific literatures which break up with the conventional ecocritical literatures, which portray the pristine beauty of nature and instead, present the toxic chemical exposures and its resultant chronic illnesses to highlight the issue of environmental racism. The popular novels and stories of this kind are Ana Castillo’s So Far from God, Linda Hogan’s Solar Storms, Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats, Helena María Viramontes’ Under the Feet of Jesus, Hassan Blasim’s The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories of Iraq, Mo Yan’s Iron Child, Rigoberta Menchú’s Death of Her Little Brother in the Finca, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and Bessie Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather. These become the advocates of environmental ethics and social justice.
Sarah Joseph, an eminent feminist and environmental thinker, writer and activist from Kerala, originally a Malayalam writer; pictures through one of her most acclaimed, translated novel Gift in Green, the gradual degradation of Aathi, the pristine village because of the invasion of the novae elite Kumaran. The impalpable issues which disturb Kumaran …show more content…
The innocent nature-friendly villagers face the consequences of his unruly encroachments by way of heaps of garbage in their crystal clear water sources and the resultant epidemics which grab the lives of many poor innocent inhabitants of Aathi and their daily sustenance for living. The novel represents in Kumaran a true story of the contemporary reality of Kerala where people go out of state and country in search of green pastures: more economy, more comfort; and come back wealthier to topple down the balanced ecosystem of its landscape at the cost of the poor and the marginalized. The natural environment of Kerala is fabulous with “innumerable canals, water drains, ponds, water springs, wells, paddy fields brimming with water, and slushy marshes” (Joseph 33). Their greedy, foxy eyes are on these natural