Dying trees in globalizing Hindi literature: environment, middle classes, and posthuman awareness

Abstract

This article presents themes and arguments concerning the relationships between India’s middle classes and the complex meanings and materialities of the environment with reference to literary treatments in the Hindi field, drawing also on environmental, social-cultural and political literature. It focuses on examples from Hindi short stories (The neem tree by Chandan Pandey and Death of a tree by Alka Saraogi) and poetry (The killing of a tree by Kunvar Narayan), dealing with civic indifference and the public sphere; environmental activism and ecological thinking; and environmental metaphors of creative writing.