Amitav Ghosh Wins Erasmus Prize 2024 for His Writings on Climate Change
Indian writer Amitav Ghosh is the winner of this year’s Erasmus Prize, for his writings on the planetary crisis and climate change.
The Praemium Erasmianum Foundation in the Netherlands awards the prize annually for an organisation or individual’s “exceptional contributions” in the fields of the humanities, social sciences or arts in Europe and the rest of the world.
On March 7, Ghosh posted on social media that it was a “delight” and “honour” to be conferred the award. He will receive the award in person in the Netherlands in November.
Many of Ghosh’s works including The Great Derangement and The Nutmeg’s Curse dwell on the ongoing planetary crisis and are interlinked with the impacts of climate change.
Recurring themes of nature, people, and climate change
Nature, people, and interactions between both, have been major themes in several of Ghosh’s works – from some parts in his fictional Ibis trilogy (Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire) to The Hungry Tide. The latter – published 20 years ago – dwells on the story of a marine biologist in search of the rare Irrawady dolphin in the Sunderbans. Set against the backdrop of climate change and a cyclone that changes the protagonists’ lives, the book also touched on man-animal conflict.
Another of Ghosh’s books, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) is a non-fictional work that touches on colonialism and the politics interlinked with climate change, as well as the art of writing about the issue. In his latest book The Nutmeg’s Curse – written during the COVID-19 pandemic – Ghosh explores the exploitation of indigenous communities, ownership of natural resources and their use, along with climate change and colonialism.
‘Imagining the unthinkable’
“He receives the prize for his passionate contribution to the theme ‘imagining the unthinkable’, in which an unprecedented global crisis – climate change – takes shape through the written word,” the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation said in a press release.
“Ghosh has delved deeply into the question of how to do justice to this existential threat that defies our imagination. His work offers a remedy by making an uncertain future palpable through compelling stories about the past. He also wields his pen to show that the climate crisis is a cultural crisis that results from a dearth of the imagination,” it added.
Ghosh expressed his “delight” and “honour” on the award on March 7, via a post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
“It’s an incredible privilege to follow in the footsteps of legends like @Trevornoah, A.S. Byatt and Barbara Ehrenreich,” Ghosh tweeted.
Last year, the prize went to South African comedian Trevor Noah. Past recipients include American journalist and writer Barbara Ehrenreich (2018), writer A.S. Byatt (2016) and Charles Chaplin and Ingmar Bergman in 1965.