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Literature and Theology Advance Access originally published online on July 23, 2009
Literature and Theology 2009 23(3):289-302; doi:10.1093/litthe/frp041
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press 2009; all rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Postcolonial Science Fiction?: Science, Religion and the Transformation of Genre in Amitav Ghosh's The Calcutta Chromosome

James H. Thrall

World Religions Department, International College, University of Bridgeport, 303 University Avenue, Bridgeport, CT 06604, USA
E-mail: jht3{at}duke.edu


  Abstract

An example of the emerging subgenre of postcolonial science fiction, Amitav Ghosh's 1995 novel The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of Fevers, Delirium and Discovery disrupts colonialism's sharp opposition between suspect Eastern esotericism and the normative force of Western rationality by presenting an inherently rational and mystical order. In keeping with the unsettling irruption of other postcolonial voices in a genre so identified with Western technological hegemony, the novel's complex mingling of religion and science raises questions about the nature of knowledge, while it suggests the need to reconsider the boundaries of science fiction yet again.


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