Indian author Amitav Ghosh wins Erasmus Prize for his writings on climate change

The Praemium Erasmianum Foundation, which awards the prize, wrote in a statement: "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."

"Ghosh has delved deeply into the question of how to do justice to this existential threat that defies our imagination," the statement said.

The committee said Ghosh offered a remedy by making an uncertain future palpable through compelling stories about the past.

Born in Kolkata in 1956, Ghosh studied social anthropology at Oxford.

Speaking on his work, the committee said, "Nature has been an important character in his work ever since he conducted research into the tidal landscape of the Sundarbans for his book The Hungry Tide and witnessed how climate change and rising sea levels were ravaging the area."

"In his non-fiction book The Nutmeg’s Curse he traces the current planetary crisis back to a disastrous vision that reduces the earth to raw material, soulless and mechanical. In his essay The Great Derangement he challenges readers to view climate change through the geopolitical context of war and trade," the committee said.

Ghosh received the  2018 Jnanpith Award, the highest literary prize in India.

The Erasmus Prize is awarded annually to a person or institution that has made an exceptional contribution to the humanities, the social sciences or the arts, in Europe and beyond.

The award consists of a cash prize of €150,000  (USD 157,000).

The Erasmus Prize is awarded by the Board of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation.