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Amitav Ghosh: Wild Fictions

From one of our most brilliant thinkers, explore a searing collection of essays about how we tell stories and our relationship with the world around us.

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Ghosh is joined in conversation by Pankaj Mishra to discuss Wild Fictions, a collection of essays written over the past 25 years or so and published in various journals and periodicals.

The essays can be clubbed under the broad headings of writings on literature and language, climate change and environment, human lives, travel and discoveries, and opinions and conversations.

They focus on the abiding concerns that are reflected in Ghosh’s works of fiction and non-fiction: colonisation, colonialism and its effects; the complex and delicate link between humans and nature; the ways in which we understand and interact with the world we live in; the importance of history and (re)discovery; how we tell stories, how we use language; and the importance of speaking and writing on issues and events that are key to our times.

Amitav Ghosh is the author of the bestselling Ibis trilogy, comprised of Sea of Poppies (shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize), River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire. He is the author of many works of nonfiction, including The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, and Smoke and Ashes.

In 2015, he was named as a finalist of the Man Booker International Prize. In 2018, Ghosh became the first English-language writer to receive the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honour, and in 2024 he was awarded the Laureate Erasmus Prize. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Pankaj Mishra’s books include Age of Anger: A History of the Present, From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia and two novels, the more recent of which is Run and Hide. The World After Gaza is published in February.

Need to know

Age guidance
For ages 16+

For your visit

This event is held at the Purcell Room Southbank Centre

The Purcell Room is located in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which is open from 90 minutes before events start until they finish. It’s closed at all other times.

Concrete interior of Purcell Room entrance at Southbank Centre View larger image

Plan your visit

The Purcell Room is an auditorium located within our Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Getting here

Our address is Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX.

The nearest tube stations to us are Waterloo and Embankment; Waterloo is also the nearest train station. And more than 20 different London bus routes pass within 500 metres of our venues.  More information on getting here by rail, road or river is available on our Getting here page.

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Access

We’re working hard to remove barriers, so that our facilities and events can be accessible to as many people as possible.

All help points, toilets, performance and exhibition spaces at the Southbank Centre are accessible to all, as are the cafes, bars and restaurants. We also have excellent public transport links with step-free access.

All information about booking wheelchair spaces, step-free access, blue badge parking, access maps and guides and other help available whilst you’re here, including details about our Access Scheme, can be found on our Access page.

Food & drink

From coffee to cocktails, filling favourites to fine dining, plus some of London’s best street food – it’s all here at the Southbank Centre.

Places to eat and drink whilst you’re here