Wild Fictions: A Conversation with Amitav Ghosh - UChicago | Graham School We use to enhance your experience on our site. Discussions Wild Fictions: A Conversation with Amitav Ghosh Join us for a wide-ranging discussion with novelist and essayist Amitav Ghosh on the present ‘catastrophic convergence’ of social, historical, and natural forces—and how new (and old) narratives might allow us to repair our relationships with our environment and one another. Date Tuesday, May 5, 2026 Time 5:15 pm - 7:30 pm CT Location David Rubenstein Forum or via livestream About the Event Join us for a wide-ranging discussion with novelist and essayist Amitav Ghosh on the present ‘catastrophic convergence’ of social, historical, and natural forces—and how new (and old) narratives might allow us to repair our relationships with our environment and one another. For nearly four decades Amitav Ghosh has written prolifically and profoundly on the inseparability of the natural and the sociopolitical. In this conversation he will discuss the wide-ranging and interconnected themes of his latest collection of essays Wild Fictions : from imperialist and colonialist histories that continue to condition the climate crisis to the search for stories and ways of living that show a path beyond our inheritance of violence and exploitation. A reception will be held from 5:15 to 6:00 p.m., followed by a moderated conversation from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Who's Speaking Amitav Ghosh Award-winning author Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He studied in Delhi, Oxford and Alexandria and is the author of The Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines, In An Antique Land, Dancing in Cambodia, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, and The Ibis Trilogy, consisting of Sea... Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He studied in Delhi, Oxford and Alexandria and is the author of The Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines, In An Antique Land Dancing in Cambodia The Calcutta Chromosome The Glass Palace The Hungry Tide , and The Ibis Trilogy , consisting of Sea of Poppies River of Smoke and Flood of Fire . His most recent book, The Great Derangement; Climate Change and the Unthinkable , a work of non-fiction, appeared in 2016. The Circle of Reason was awarded France’s Prix Médicis in 1990, and The Shadow Lines won two prestigious Indian prizes the same year, the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Ananda Puraskar. The Calcutta Chromosome won the Arthur C. Clarke award for 1997 and The Glass Palace won the International e-Book Award at the Frankfurt book fair in 2001. In January 2005 The Hungry Tide was awarded the Crossword Book Prize, a major Indian award. His novel, Sea of Poppies (2008) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, 2008 and was awarded the Crossword Book Prize and the India Plaza Golden Quill Award. Amitav Ghosh’s work has been translated into more than thirty languages and he has served on the juries of the Locarno and Venice film festivals. His essays have appeared in The New Yorker The New Republic and The New York Times. They have been anthologized under the titles The Imam and the Indian (Penguin Random House India) and Incendiary Circumstances (Houghton Mifflin, USA). The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable , a work of non-fiction, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2016 and was given the inaugural Utah Award for the Environmental Humanities in 2018. Amitav Ghosh holds five Lifetime Achievement awards and six honorary doctorates. In 2007 he was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India’s highest honors, by the President of India. In 2010 he was a joint winner, along with Margaret Atwood of a Dan David prize, and 2011 he was awarded the Grand Prix of the Blue Metropolis festival in Montreal. In 2018 the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honor, was conferred on Amitav Ghosh. 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. In 2024 Amitav Ghosh was awarded the Erasmus Prize and was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Lin Atnip Basic Program Instructor Lin Atnip (she/her) is a Tutor at St. John’s College in Santa Fe (on leave 2025-2026) and an Instructor in the Basic Program. She completed her PhD in 2019 in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago and a postdoctorate in the Center for Humanities and Social... Lin Atnip (she/her) is a Tutor at St. John’s College in Santa Fe (on leave 2025-2026) and an Instructor in the Basic Program. She completed her PhD in 2019 in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago and a postdoctorate in the Center for Humanities and Social Change at the University of California-Santa Barbara, focusing on the question of how we are educated to the conditions of modernity (especially modern crisis) through reading and reflecting on literature. Her first book, From Tragedy to Apocalypse in American Literature: Reading to Make Sense of Our Endings, was recently published by Lexington Books. She also writes fiction and poetry. Ms. Atnip joined the Basic Program in 2015. Wild Fictions: A Conversation with Amitav Ghosh Tuesday, May 5, 2026 from 5:15 pm - 7:30 pm CT Back to Events This is the search overlay. Use the Escape key to close it. Your Shopping Cart Enroll Now