When Amitav Ghosh Predicted the L.A. Wildfires
His 2019 novel, ‘Gun Island,’ warned us of increasingly connected, global climate events — and their dire impact.
Amitav Ghosh knew that he wanted to be a writer since he was 7 or 8. “I guess it’s this whole Bengali thing,” he admitted. But childhood desires don’t always translate to success. What has made Ghosh Ghosh is his ability to weave stories across time, countries, languages. In his cinematic Gun Island (2019), he teaches readers that the word bundook (“gun”) traces its roots to the word for Venice. With one note, Ghosh can make the world feel instantaneously smaller and more connected.
In Gun Island, readers must chase clues across Bengal’s Sundarbans, Brooklyn, Venice, and Los Angeles. All these places have one thing in common: they are losing the fight against rising water, frequent fires, and changing climates.