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

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.